Michel Barnier defends budget in TV interview as government faces no confidence vote on Wednesday – as it happened

We’re closing this blog now.

Barnier has just finished an interview with the French media this evening. Here’s a summary of the key points he made. He:

• Rejected the idea that President Emmanuel Macron should resign to unblock the country’s political crisis, calling him the guarantor of stability.

• Said he remained open to budget talks with the far-right National Rally and other parties.

• Felt the budget had been the subject of work “for weeks and weeks”, adding that “it is not for pleasure that I present such a difficult budget.”

• Warned that French people will the impact of instability “immediately” in interest rates.

• Said that if a motion of censure succeeds, and no budget is adopted for 2025, nearly 18 millions French people will inevitably see their income taxes increase and others will pay it for the first time.

• And said he sees “a lot of tension” in France and “a lot of anger” which we must “be careful of”.
  
  That’s it from me, Donna Ferguson. Thanks for following along.

Barnier rejected the idea that President Emmanuel Macron should resign to unblock the country’s political crisis, calling him the guarantor of stability.

He also called for “respect” in politics and said there was “no glitch” in the negotiations with other politicians to come up with the 2025 budget.

He added: “The moment is serious, it is difficult, but the stakes are not impossible.”

He then ended his interview.

Barnier has warned that French people will the impact of instability “immediately” in interest rates.

He said he sees “a lot of tension in our country” and “a lot of anger” which we must “be careful of”.

If a motion of censure succeeds, and no budget is adopted for 2025, he said that nearly 18 millions French people will inevitably see their income taxes increase and others will pay it for the first time.

This is “because we will not have been able to include in the finance law the reindexation that is planned for the scaling of tax brackets,” he said.

Barnier has said he doesn’t negotiate with Marine Le Pen and her National Rally party, but he did listen.

“I don’t negotiate, I listened,” he reportedly said, and added that he had held discussions with everyone, including those on the left.

He said: “When I arrived in this office, I naturally called my political friends. Those who agreed to support the government. I mentioned them. And in the hour that followed, I called two or three leaders of the Socialist Party, notably Mr. Faure and Mr. Vallaud. And what did they each tell me? They told me: “We don’t want to see you now. In any case, we’re voting for censure,” before I opened my mouth.”

Prime minister Barnier has defended his 2025 budget, saying it has been the subject of work “for weeks and weeks”.

“It is not for pleasure that I present such a difficult budget,” he said.

Barnier has said that he thinks the text of the bill could be improved: “I have always said that this text could be improved, that it was not final and that we have improved it".”

He added: “We listened to everyone and we have made progress on many points. Just yesterday morning, on the delisting of medications, I clarified things to say that there would be no delisting.”

The prime minister said that the situation is complicated, because there is no majority: “I know that it is a fragile and ephemeral situation,” he said, before continuing: “The gilding that is around us, the official cars, the gold of the Republic, I don’t care.”

He added: “What is happening goes far beyond my sole condition.”

He said the “motion of censure is not a vote for or against Barnier … it is a vote on a text” – in this case the Social Security financing bill. The French “feel that there should be no chaos”, he said, according to Le Monde.

Michel Barnier has said thinks it is “possible” that his government will not be censured in tomorrow’s vote.

Interviewed on TF1 and France 2, prime minister Barnier said he considered it “possible” that his government would not be censured tomorrow. “It depends on the deputies, each of whom has a share of responsibility before the French people,” he said, according to Le Monde.

French President Emmanuel Macron, on a visit to Saudi Arabia, has appeared to be mostly a spectator in the political crisis he caused by ordering snap elections over the summer, prompting many people to question if he should consider resigning.

In a poll published on Monday, 52% of French people said they favoured Macron resigning, but were above all concerned about their purchasing power.

“I’m very worried and very upset with the forces on the left and the forces on the far right,” Bertrand Chenu, a 65-year-old retiree, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in Paris.

Another Parisian, Janine Revel, also blamed politicians. “All the party leaders are useless,” she said. “They only think of themselves.”

If the government falls, it would be the first successful no-confidence vote since a defeat for Georges Pompidou’s government in 1962, when Charles de Gaulle was president.

The lifespan of Barnier’s government would also be the shortest of any administration of France’s fifth republic which began in 1958.

As we have been reporting, the left wing opposition party, La France Insoumise (LFI), known as France Unbowed, and Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) said they would table no-confidence votes. It means that the Barnier government is likely to fall tomorrow. Éric Coquerel, a leading figure in LFI and chairman of the finance committee of the national assembly, has said the only viable option is for the left to unite and back a New Popular Front (NFP) government in the event Barnier loses the no confidence vote.

According to Le Figaro, Coquerel, who is urging the Socialists to support a possible NPF option, told the press at the National Assembly:

If we want to have a chance of there being a left-wing government, we must all hit the same nail.

If we start to propose options, different solutions we can clearly see that we are making Emmanuel Macron’s job easier by not appointing a left-wing government.

The only thing that can unite us is to continue to demand a government that carries the program of the New Popular Front.

Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally (RN), has said a motion of censure “is not a coalition or a political agreement” after the leader backed a no-confidence motion to oust Michel Barnier as prime minister.

Le Pen previously said backing the no-confidence motion is the only constitutional way to protect the French public from a “dangerous, unjust and punitive budget”.

On X on Tuesday, she wrote:

Let’s be clear: a motion of censure is not a coalition or a political agreement, it is nothing other than the expression of a disavowal of the policy and budgetary choices proposed by the Government.

“The only alliance that was formed and that plunged France into chaos was that of the two-round legislative elections, where the Macronists and the far left, hand in hand, withdrew in 210 constituencies to block the National Rally.”

US president-elect Donald Trump will attend the reopening celebration for Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris this weekend, his first foreign trip since winning the election. France and Germany, the EU’s most powerful countries, are in political flux just weeks ahead of the former Republican president re-entering the White House on 20 January. So, what was the relationship like between Emmanuel Macron and Trump during his last term?

During Trump’s first term in office, between 2017 and 2021, Macron proved to be among the world leaders most adept at managing the American president’s whims as he tried to develop a personal connection built in no small part on flattery.

Macron was the guest of honour at Trump’s first state dinner and Trump travelled to France several times. But the relationship soured as Trump’s term progressed and Macron criticised him for questioning the need for Nato and raising doubts about America’s commitment to the mutual-defence pact.

Macron and other European leaders are now trying to persuade Trump not to abandon America’s support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s nearly three-year invasion. Trump over the weekend announced that he intends to nominate real estate developer Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to serve as ambassador to France.

You may be wondering where the French president Emmanuel Macron is. He began a three-day state visit to Saudi Arabia on Monday with the stated aim of boosting diplomatic and economic ties. If the no confidence vote in Michel Barnier fails tomorrow, which is looking likely, Macron, whose mandate extends to 2027 whatever happens politically, can restart talks on appointing a new prime minister and forming a new government.

Marine Le Pen, who has the power to decide the fate of the current government, has been embroiled in a high-profile embezzlement trial, which comes almost a decade after initial investigations started. If found guilty on 31 March 2025, the three-time presidential candidate of the far-right National Rally (RN) could be blocked from participating in France’s next presidential election, scheduled for 2027.

Le Pen, her party - which was at the time called the National Front, and others including former lawmakers and parliamentary assistants - are accused of using money destined for work at the European Parliament to pay staff who were actually working for the party.

Le Pen and her co-defendants deny the charges and say the way they used the money was legitimate, and that the allegations are based on a too-narrow definition of what a parliamentary assistant does. “She could hope, if she won, to be in the Elysee Palace by early February - giving the judges an impossible task when they have to decide whether or not to ban her from politics for five years on 31 March,” wrote Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group.

If convicted, Le Pen would be able to lodge an appeal. European parliament authorities said the legislature had lost €3m through the jobs scheme. The RN has paid back (at least) €1m, which it says is not an admission of guilt.

Here are some comments, carried by franceinfo, made by French politicians this morning about the looming no confidence vote and the political turbulence the country is experiencing:

The Socialist leader, Olivier Faure, told France’s most-watched news channel, the 24-hour BFMTV:

We have been trying for two months to make proposals to the prime minister, and the only one he has reached out to is Marine Le Pen…

He has acknowledged being a prisoner of his common base and not being able to make any gesture in our direction. If we censor, it is not because we do not like Michel Barnier. We want to achieve progress on the substance, in particular pensions and health.

Charlotte Parmentier-Lecocq, the minister delegate to the minister of solidarity, autonomy and equality (with responsibility for people with disabilities), told Radio J:

I am worried about the impact that the vote on this motion of censure could have, if the left and the RN decide to vote for it, on people with disabilities.

Lucie Castets, who was the leftist New Popular Front (NFP) alliance’s choice for prime minister before Michel Barnier was appointed, has criticised the centre-right government for relying on support from the far-right National Rally for “ideological reasons”, making reference to concessions on “state medical aid”, which she says will cause France to “move away from its principles of humanity”. Over the summer, French President Emmanuel Macron refused to nominate a government led by the NFP, despite it having won the largest number of seats in parliament in elections in July. Macron, seen as a centrist by many, claimed that the left could not win a confidence vote that would likely be triggered from parliamentary opponents. On Tuesday, Castets said:

I was part of the solution in the summer, I made myself available and I prepared to govern with the forces of the New Popular Front and with the forces of civil society who have a lot to contribute.