French prime minister François Bayrou was ousted on the evening of September 9 after a vote of confidence was held in Parliament. His hope was that Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party would abstain. The gambit failed: the vote was rejected by 364 votes.
Bayrou’s ouster is a victory for the anger of workers and the masses that erupted following the announcement of multi-billion austerity measures on July 15. His resignation demonstrates the potential of grassroots mobilization, and must serve as a pillar to strengthen the mobilizations on September 10 and 18. Even if the government’s collapse reveals the regime’s weaknesses in the face of deep anger over austerity, President Emmanuel Macron and the ruling class will try to regain control.
A Deepening Political Crisis
Bayrou is the third prime minister in less than a year to be ousted amid a political crisis that has deepened since 2022. The situation has put President Macron and the institutions of the presidency in the firing line of popular anger. This has led ruling-class commentators to fear a shift toward a “regime crisis” that could lead to the collapse of the Fifth Republic — a regime that has ensured the stability of French capitalism for decades.
The current crisis escalated over the summer. On July 15, Bayrou presented his draft budget for the coming year, which would mean massive attacks on the working class and the most vulnerable sections of the population. It included savings totaling almost €44 billion from the cancellation of two public holidays, massive cuts in healthcare, a pension freeze, and the elimination of thousands of public sector jobs.
These announcements immediately triggered a wave of outrage. A few days later, a website launched by a collective of 20 activists published a call for action under the slogan “Bloquons tout” (Let’s block everything). Using the slogans “boycott, disobedience, solidarity,” it called for blockades of roads and logistics centers, and boycotts of supermarket chains that benefit from tax breaks. Whether September 10 will spark a new movement like the 2018 Yellow Vest movement or the 2023 protests against pension reforms remains to be seen. But the potential to transform the momentum into class-struggle protests lies primarily in the hands of workers, who, with strikes in strategic production sectors, would indeed be able to “block everything.”
In this context, Bayrou was broadly expected to lose the vote of confidence, thus ending his budget. While the movement’s original demand — rejection of the new budget — would be fulfilled for the time being, the conflict is by no means over. The draft budget represents merely the latest stage in a broader austerity policy that will be repeated in the coming years.
It is therefore crucial that the movement view the current crisis not as an end point, but as a starting point for a new period of class struggle. Only by generalizing the experiences of the mobilization, particularly through organizing in workplaces and strategic sectors, can the political crisis be prevented from being simply defused by a change of leadership at the top of the government. The question thus arises not only about Bayrou’s downfall, but also about the ability of the working class to develop a long-term resistance to the recurring austerity dictates.
For his part, Macron is likely to seek to quickly appoint a new prime minister, relying on a new “common ground” government. Many of Macron’s current ministers — Darmanin, Vautrin, Retailleau, and Lecornu appear in the running. Negotiations for an agreement in which the parties agree not to file a vote of no confidence are already underway. Having announced its own candidacy, the social-democratic Socialist Party (PS), supported by the Greens, is offering itself as a backup for the regime in exchange for a symbolic measure to tax the “rich.” For the RN, such an agreement to avoid a vote of no confidence could also become a reality. Even if Le Pen rules out supporting a government including members of the New Popular Front (NFP) from the outset, Lecornu, Minister of the Armed Forces, could gain their tacit support by adopting the party’s racist platform.
Such a centrist government, repeating the experience of Bayrou or Barnier, would, however, be even more fragile than its predecessors and would have to face both the risk of a vote of no confidence and the emerging social movements. These limitations explain why parts of the regime are considering alternatives, like installing Le Pen as prime minister after new elections, as advocated by Sarkozy and Breton, in order to restore relative stability. This would represent a Bonapartist leap unprecedented in the Fifth Republic, and could prove explosive.
Bringing France to a Standstill on September 10 and 18
On Tuesday, September 10, France is scheduled to come to a standstill. Under the slogan “Bloquons tout” (Let’s block everything), assemblies, union meetings, and other initiatives have cropped up with the help of social media in recent weeks. General assemblies are taking place in more and more cities, such as in Paris, where over 500 workers and union members from the health, education, and transport sectors met, along with students and the unemployed. This assembly combined immediate opposition to Bayrou’s budget with broader political demands against advancing militarization, in solidarity with Palestine, and against impending repression. The mobilizations on September 10 aren’t just a reaction to Bayrou’s now-failed budget — they’re an expression of a deeper crisis and a movement that could once again reach historic proportions.
Broad sections of the union base across the country have already declared their support for the September 10 day of protest and have raised the prospect of strikes and blockades. But while the mood at meetings has been combative, a different picture emerged at the union leadership level. The Intersyndicale, an alliance of the most important French trade union confederations, issued a joint statement after its meeting without even mentioning September 10. Instead, it called for its own day of action on September 18.
With this stance, the union leadership is attempting to weaken and defang the movement. In doing so, they are repeating their actions during the protests against the pension reforms. Back then, defeat was by no means inevitable. This was primarily due to the strategy of the union leadership, which limited itself to isolated days of action, kept the movement away from a political escalation, and avoided a longer strike for fear of losing control. A comprehensive plan of struggle could have united the forces of the entire class. Whether September 10 will be a turning point depends on whether these lessons are learned. The striking workers must carry the fight against the Macron regime to the end and, contrary to the wishes of the union leadership, trigger a wave of protests that extends beyond September 10 and 18 and expands the movement.
It is this perspective that the general assemblies must develop, refusing to limit their objectives to Macron’s ouster in order to force new elections, as France Insoumise demands. These assemblies must also adopt a program that combines social and political demands: the rejection of austerity measures and militarization, the repeal of the pension reform in favor of retirement at 60, and massive funding of public services, paid for by the bosses’ profits. We must fight for Macron’s resignation, of course, but also for the end of the Fifth Republic, which offers the ruling classes numerous levers to try to extricate themselves from the situation. In its place, we must demand the creation of a single assembly, whose deputies are elected for two years by local assemblies, recallable at any time, and paid the average wage of a nurse.
Translated and adapted from articles originally published in German on September 9 in Klasse Gegen Klasse, and in French on September 8 in Révolution Permanente.