“Double or quits”: such are the terms French media used to report the surprise news of a confidence vote in the current French government. In the face of the Left-wing call for strikes on 10th September to protest against the proposed Budget for 2026, Prime Minister François Bayrou has just grabbed back the initiative: parliament will debate a motion of confidence in his government on Monday 8th September 2025, 2 days before the anticipated upheaval for the economy.
This deft move by the prime minister should bring France back from the brink of disaster – at least for now. Parliament does not normally meet again until October and the Left had decided to bring down both government and budget even before the new session starts. That is an indication of the insurrectionary mentality on the Left in France.
In the social and public order context of France today, however, such a move is to play with fire: the total meltdown of law and order, even open civil war.
Who is François Bayrou; what is the crisis; and what does this latest event say about the political state of France today?
François Bayrou is aged 74 and a longstanding senior figure in the Centre of French politics: he is leader of the Modem party and former minister for education. He was among the first to back Emmanuel Macron for president in the 2017 election. He recognised the rising star – one indication of his political nous. Modem support is essential to the Centrist coalition President Macron has relied on since 2022. Bayrou played that trump card in late 2024 to take the premiership from Macrons preferred candidate following the resignation of Michel Barnier. It took an extremely ambitious (or stupid !) politician to grab at the top prize when Michel Barnier had already failed to do the impossible: solve the budget crisis caused by Macron adding a Trillion euro to the State Debt, which today stands at 3.2 trillion …
Bayrou survived against the odds when he allowed the 2024 budget to repeat for 2025, the default device in France to ensure a Budget when parliament cannot agree one.
In July 2025 François Bayrou deliberately trailed his proposed Budget for 2026 which requires a 44 billion euro saving in the annual State deficit. The Left reacted predictably, ideologically and in total disregard for the reality of State finances today: they called for strikes before parliament could sit again, explicitly to bring down both government and the 2026 Budget proposal.
Since the unexpected announcement of a confidence vote last Monday, Left-wing media have wheeled out their economists to tell us that no budget crisis threatens the French State. Well, Bayrou gave a speech to a national conference of business leaders in Paris on Thursday 28th August and said this: in 2020 the annual interest alone on the accumulated public debt was 30 billion euros; in 2024 that had become 60 billion euros; in 2027, the year scheduled for presidential elections, the interest payments on the debt will become the biggest budget item of State spending, more than for Education or Pensions or “missions régaliennes” ie security both abroad and domestic – the highest spend in 2024 at 79 billion.
Macron meddles vociferously and militarily overseas: yet at home, France suffers increasing breakdown in law and order, including systematic attacks on the police by organised criminals and by political extremists.
The French people do not need war with Russia: they already have war zones at home because Emmanuel Macron has refused to confront crime correctly: he has continued the Establishment policy of pretending the problem does not exist and allowing the Socialist dominated Judiciary to consider the criminal before the victim. Macron, however, does need a war with Russia to divert attention from his failings at home; to promote his ambition to be President of Europe; to keep favour with the western plutocratic interests salivating at the prospect of carving up extensive Russian natural resources.
France is now in a position similar to that before the Revolution in 1789. So says an Op-ed in Le Journal du Dimanche on 24th August 2025. Not only are French State finances extremely vulnerable, the state of law and order in France today is desperate. Over the last year the emboldened, insurrectionary attitude of hooligans, of drugs gangs, and of Far Left militants has become blatant. That is hardly surprising when the President of France thinks only in soundbites and globalisation, and ignores the essential needs of the French people.
Bringing matters to a head in Parliament instead of on the streets, is a deft move by Bayrou. In fact it is absolutely necessary. If – as is likely – he fails to win the vote, he must resign. The president is then faced with the choice of appointing a new government, or dissolving parliament. That choice is actually a ‘no brainer’ in the context of France today: he must dissolve parliament. Why ? To keep political activity within constitutional and institutional parameters – and off the streets. It is the logic of the Bayrou initiative. The situation requires a government based on a parliamentary majority. But Macron is so absorbed by his Agenda, he may well try to appoint another Prime Minister unacceptable to Left-wingers, and so allow the situation to spiral out of control…
But new elections in the autumn may well only delay the crisis, anyway. If the Left wins, they will likely make the Budget deficit worse, as well as continue to ignore the crisis in law and order and the problem of religious extremism. If the centre Right comes in, they will be faced with the same straight refusal of the Left to swallow any budget restraint, and so the unions will be on the streets again. If the Rassemblement National wins, the Left regards Revolution as perfectly legitimate.
All this is not helped by a media mentality which hypes to gain audience share (nb the ‘double or quits’ metaphor); which thinks according to the ideological stereotypes of our day; and which fails to take its share of the responsibility for the state of French politics today.
In short, catastrophe is coming …
DEUS ERGO SUMUS 