France’s prime minister has announced that he will seek a vote of confidence in parliament on the issue of the 2026 Budget – the vote scheduled two days before the date of a called ‘blockade’ of France in protest at his cost-cutting plans.

Speaking in a press conference on Monday afternoon, Prime Minister François Bayrou said: “I have asked the president to convene an extraordinary session of parliament on September 8th, during which I will lay out the programme for government and call a confidence vote.”

Bayrou’s plans for a €44 billion cost-cutting Budget – which he insists is necessary to tackle France’s spiralling budget deficit – have already caused a massive backlash.

Some unions have called for strikes, while some of the opposition parties have called upon people to support the September 10th ‘bloquons tout’ (block everything) movement.

READ ALSO: What do we know about the call to ‘blockade France’ on September 10th?

Bayrou’s minority government is also threatened with a no-confidence vote in parliament, which, if it achieves a majority, would bring down his government in exactly the same manner as his predecessor Michel Barnier.

Seeking to preempt this possibility, he has decided to take the unusual step of calling a vote of confidence in himself, before the Budget debates begin.

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He told journalists on Monday that this move is intended to push parliament into an “adult debate” on France’s financial situation and the increasing problem of the spiralling Budget deficit. 

He said that the vote was necessary to “confirm the scale of the effort required” to tackle the public debt, before detailed debates begin in parliament on the Budget itself.

More to follow