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French parliament votes to oust Michel Barnier’s government

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French parliament votes to oust Michel Barnier’s government

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The French parliament on Wednesday voted to oust Prime Minister Michel Barnier over his proposed deficit-cutting budget, plunging the country into deeper political turmoil.

A motion of no confidence was approved by 331 votes in the 577 member national assembly, as Marine Le Pen’s far-right party teamed up with a leftist bloc to bring down Barnier’s minority government.

Barnier’s administration has collapsed without adopting his contentious 2025 budget that included €60bn in tax increases and spending cuts to reduce France’s deficit, which will reach 6 per cent of GDP this year.

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President Emmanuel Macron will now have to select another prime minister, a task made difficult by a raucous parliament divided into three blocs, none of which is close to having a governing majority.

Barnier’s three-month term as prime minister was the shortest of any premier since France’s Fifth Republic was founded in 1958. It is only the second time a government has been voted down since then. 

The political tumult gripping France comes just weeks after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition collapsed, leaving the EU’s two most powerful states in limbo.

Barnier defended his record as prime minister during a national assembly debate before the confidence vote, telling lawmakers: “I have been and am proud to act to build rather than to destroy.”

He said it was “not for pleasure” that he had presented a difficult budget. France’s fiscal “reality will not disappear by the enchantment of a motion of censure”, he added.

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Macron will have to contend with an emboldened Le Pen and her Rassemblement National party, which was decisive in removing Barnier after spurning his last-ditch attempts at a compromise on his budget.

Le Pen said her decision to censure Barnier was prompted by the “necessity to put an end to the chaos, to spare the French people from a dangerous, unfair and punitive budget”.

Macron “is largely responsible for the current situation”, Le Pen told TF1 television shortly after the vote.

When the president appoints a new prime minister, that person would work on a new budget which Rassemblement National “will construct with other forces in the national assembly”, she added.

Mathilde Panot, a leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, slammed Barnier for seeking deals with the Rassemblement National to try to stay in power.

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“Barnier tried to escape censure by choosing dishonour, he has gotten dishonour and censure,” she said.

Marie Lebec, a lawmaker from Macron’s centrist alliance and former minister, said her fellow parliamentarians should put aside party squabbling to find a way forward.

The political crisis risks further spooking financial markets. Barnier had previously warned of a financial and economic “storm” should his government fall without adopting the 2025 budget, saying borrowing costs were on track to exceed €60bn next year, more than the French defence budget.

French borrowing costs on its 10-year sovereign bond hit a 12-year high against Germany’s last week, as investors fretted about the likely failure of Barnier’s government.

After the confidence vote on Wednesday, the euro was flat against the dollar at $1.052, reflecting how the result was widely expected.

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Barnier may stay on as a caretaker premier for a short time, but it will fall to his successor to craft another 2025 budget, ahead of a year-end deadline.

In the meantime, Macron and parliament have several options to pass emergency measures that would avoid a government shutdown and keep public services funded temporarily.

But unlike previously when he procrastinated on picking premiers, Macron aimed to move quickly this time, said a person familiar with his thinking, and he has drawn up a list of potential candidates to succeed Barnier.

The Elysée said Macron would address the nation on Thursday evening in a televised speech.

Barnier was appointed by Macron in September after the president’s centrist alliance lost snap parliamentary elections, which increased the ranks of the far right and leftist parties.

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His departure is a sign of how gridlocked French institutions have become since the elections.

“It feels like a series of impasses in a parliament where no one has a workable majority,” said Bruno Cautrès, political scientist at Sciences Po. “There is a risk that a new government would fall quickly, just as Barnier has done.”

Additional reporting by Ian Smith in London

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Assad flees Syria for Moscow as rebels seize Damascus

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Assad flees Syria for Moscow as rebels seize Damascus

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has fled the country after a stunning offensive by rebels who seized the capital city of Damascus and toppled the dynasty that had ruled for 50 years.

Amid scenes of jubilation on Sunday, the rebels proclaimed “the city of Damascus is free from the tyrant Bashar al-Assad” and “Assad has fled” after various factions encircled the capital.

Russia, a longtime backer of the Assad regime, said the Syrian president had resigned, left the country and ordered a peaceful transition of power. Russian state newswire Tass later said he and his family had arrived in Moscow where they had been offered asylum.

“The future is ours,” said Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, leader of the triumphant Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Islamist group, in a statement read out on Syrian state television.

HTS, once an affiliate of al-Qaeda, led disparate rebel factions in a lightning 12-day offensive that brought the Assad dynasty to an ignominious end and has shaken the region.

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Last week the group seized Aleppo, Syria’s second city, within 48 hours before quickly marching south towards the capital.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed a “historic day in the annals of the Middle East” but sent tanks and infantry into a demilitarised buffer zone on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.

Netanyahu said a 1974 ceasefire agreement had “collapsed” after Syrian army units abandoned their positions and Israeli forces needed “to ensure no hostile force embeds itself right next to the border of Israel”.

US president-elect Donald Trump wrote in a social media post: “Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting [Assad] any longer.”

He added: “Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now, one because of Ukraine and a bad economy, the other because of Israel and its fighting success.”

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US President Joe Biden said Washington would “engage with all Syrian groups”, reflecting how it aims to influence what he described as “the best opportunity in generations for Syrians to forge their own future”.

Biden said the US would seek to ensure Isis could not take advantage of the situation, adding the American military had launched dozens of air strikes on Sunday targeting camps and operatives of the Jihadist group in Syria.

In Damascus, rebel factions were already attempting to enforce law and order, imposing a curfew, warning of legal penalties for theft and errant gunfire, taking over ministries and installing police officers amid widespread looting.

The Financial Times was referred to a new Ministry of Communications building, where rebel officials had set up shop, when inquiring about media access to the city after curfew.

Signalling his efforts to secure an orderly transition, Jolani declared that Syrian state institutions would remain under the supervision of the Assad-appointed prime minister until a handover.

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Near the city’s Umayyad square, the streets were littered with thousands of bullet casings — remnants of celebratory gunfire. The sound of artillery shelling and sporadic gunfire could still be heard in central Damascus on Sunday evening.

“I can’t believe it. Everyone is in the street, everyone is shouting,” said Abdallah, a Damascus resident. “It’s something historical. No one has suffered as much as the Syrian people.”

Videos sent to the Financial Times by a Damascus resident showed people inside the presidential palace, rummaging through rooms and smashing pictures of the Assad family.

A man dressed in civilian clothing appeared on Syrian state TV on Sunday morning declaring that the rebels had “liberated” Damascus and released detainees from “regime prisons”.

But while the news sparked celebrations across Syria, it also ushers in a period of huge uncertainty for a nation shattered and fragmented after 13 years of civil war, and for the wider region.

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The country borders Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon, with HTS working with Turkish-backed rebels operating under the umbrella of the Syrian National Army.

However, Syria is home to myriad factions and the degree of co-ordination between them all is unclear.

Turkey’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan hailed the end of the Assad regime, but also warned that Ankara was concerned “Isis and other terrorist organisations . . . will take advantage of this process”.

An Arab diplomat said regional powers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, Russia and Qatar had agreed to co-ordinate efforts to stabilise the situation.

Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali said he was ready to work with any leadership chosen by the people and called for unity.

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“We are ready to co-operate and all the properties of the people and the institutions of the Syrian state must be preserved,” he added.

Multiple explosions were heard in Damascus on Sunday afternoon. At least some of the strikes — whose origins were unknown — hit the Syrian security complex.

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Assad, a London-trained eye doctor, had ruled Syria since 2000, when he succeeded his late father Hafez al-Assad.

Civil war broke out in 2011 after his forces brutally suppressed a popular uprising.

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He managed to cling to power with the backing of Iran and Russia, which provided vital air power, and in recent years his regime had regained control over most of the country.

However, he presided over a hollowed-out, bankrupt state — and even many among his own Alawite community appeared to have given up on the regime after years of conflict and economic hardship.

When HTS mounted its offensive on November 27, regime forces seemed to melt away, while Russia, Iran and Hizbollah, the Lebanese militant group, were all distracted by their own conflicts.

The rebels’ success is a humiliating blow to Iran, whose support for Assad had given it a “land bridge” across Syria to Lebanon and its proxy Hizbollah.

Iran’s foreign ministry on Sunday urged respect for Syria’s “territorial integrity” and called for “an immediate end to military conflicts” in the Arab state.

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Assad’s exit is also a setback for Russia, which gained access to air and naval bases on the Mediterranean after intervening in the war in 2015.

Russia said on Sunday its military bases in Syria were “on high alert”. Moscow spoke of “no serious threat to their security”, but Russian military bloggers said it was preparing to evacuate its Khmeimim air base and naval site in Tartus.

John Foreman, a former UK defence attaché in Moscow, said the bases’ loss would be “a major strategic reversal” for Russia and without them it would be “harder for the Russian navy to maintain an enduring maritime presence in the Mediterranean or Red Sea to challenge Nato”.

Additional reporting by Max Seddon in Berlin, John Paul Rathbone in London, Neri Zilber in Tel Aviv, Felicia Schwartz in Washington

Cartography by Steven Bernard

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Authorities release new photos of suspected CEO killer | CNN

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Authorities release new photos of suspected CEO killer | CNN

Authorities release new photos of suspected CEO killer

CNN’s Gloria Pazmino reports on the latest developments as authorities continue their hunt for the person who allegedly killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York.

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Trump says he will not remove Jay Powell from Fed before term ends

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Trump says he will not remove Jay Powell from Fed before term ends

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Donald Trump said he would not seek to remove Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell before his term expires in May 2026, but promised to push ahead with sweeping tariffs, mass deportations and tax cuts in his first days in the White House.

In an interview with NBC News’s Meet the Press, Trump spoke about his priorities for the world’s largest economy when his second administration begins in January, including curtailing aid to Ukraine and reducing bloat across the government.

When asked if he had plans to replace Powell, who was tapped by Trump in 2017 and later renominated by President Joe Biden for a second term as head of the US central bank, the president-elect said he did not.

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“I think if I told him to, he would. But if I asked him to, he probably wouldn’t,” Trump added.

Since winning the US presidential election last month, concern has grown across Wall Street and Washington that Trump would threaten the independence of the Fed, which is seen as crucial to the stability both of the global economy and financial markets.

On the campaign trail, Trump seemed to suggest that he would continue the attacks of his first term, in which he called Powell an “enemy” for resisting his calls for lower interest rates.

Trump has questioned whether he should have a more direct say in monetary policy decisions. Scott Bessent, his pick for Treasury secretary, has also floated the idea of announcing an heir apparent who would act as a “shadow” Fed chair, undermining the institution’s communications by issuing contradictory guidance on the policy outlook.

Just after the election, Powell was adamant that he would not step down early from his post even if the president-elect asked him to. He also told reporters that there were no legal grounds for him to be removed early.

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Last week, he added that he was “not concerned” about the Fed’s independence during a second Trump administration, saying it was protected by “the law of the land”.

Economists are bracing for tension however, given their expectation that Trump’s plans to enact tariffs on trading partners, deport immigrants in large numbers and boost growth via lower taxes and regulations will stoke price pressures, thereby limiting how much the Fed will be able to lower interest rates overall.

The Fed has already cut its benchmark policy rate twice since September and is poised to do so again later this month, but officials have begun to hint that the pace will slow in 2025.

Trump conceded that he “can’t guarantee anything” in terms of higher costs for Americans if his tariff proposals are enacted, although he denied that they would weaken the economy. He also again touted such levies as a negotiating tool, saying he had “stopped wars with tariffs”.

The president-elect said he also had “no choice” but to deport all illegal immigrants in the US. But he said he would work with Democrats on a plan for undocumented people who entered the country as children. He also vowed to end birthright citizenship via executive action.

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On his efforts to reduce government spending, Trump said his administration would raise ages for entitlement programmes like Social Security or Medicare. “People are going to get what they’re getting,” he said.

Those plans would probably be accompanied by a pullback in the US’s involvement oversees, including in its provision of aid to Ukraine as well as its involvement in Nato, the president-elect said.

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