AFP,
Paris
France’s parliament yesterday ousted the government of Prime Minister Francois Bayrou after just nine months in office, leaving President Emmanuel Macron scrambling to find a successor and plunging the country into a new political crisis.
Bayrou, who has been in the job for just nine months, had blindsided even his allies by calling a confidence vote to end a lengthy standoff over his austerity budget, which foresees almost 44 billion euros ($52 billion) of cost savings to reduce France’s debt pile.
Bayrou, the first premier in the history of modern France to be ousted in a confidence vote rather than a no-confidence vote, will submit his resignation on Tuesday morning, according to a person close to him who asked not to be named.
In the vote in the National Assembly, 364 deputies voted that they had no confidence in the government while just 194 gave it their confidence. “In line with article 50 of the constitution, the prime minister must submit the resignation of his government,” said speaker Yael Braun-Pivet.
Bayrou is the sixth prime minister under Macron since his 2017 election but the fifth since 2022. Bayrou’s ousting leaves the French head of state with a new domestic headache at a time when he is leading diplomatic efforts on the Ukraine war.
London’s Tube network shuts
Workers begin week of strikes
REUTERS,
London
London’s Tube network came to a standstill yesterday as its workers began a week of strikes over pay and working conditions, disrupting travel for commuters and tourists in the British capital.
Almost no London Underground trains are expected to run between yesterday and Thursday. Additionally, the Docklands Light Railway, which connects the financial centres of Canary Wharf and the City of London, will not run today and Thursday.
Londoners reported making longer journeys to get to work yesterday morning, with many choosing to cycle and others taking detours.
“The prospect of it being all week, it’s a bit of a nightmare... it’s probably taken me twice as long to get in this morning,” said legal counsel Laura Sutton, 46, who was near London Bridge station.