“This is an extremely bad budget,” the 29-year-old said.
The National Rally faces a strategic dilemma: While a slim majority of its voters favor ousting Bayrou, according to a Jan. 31 poll from Harris Interactive, center-right voters — which the far right is courting as part of its push to bring the party into the mainstream — strongly oppose it.
Bardella described the no-confidence vote as an institutional “nuclear weapon,” though his party voted for one in December to bring down Bayrou’s predecessor, Michel Barnier. However, Bardella claimed that this time around, torpedoing the government would have “heavier consequences.”
Barring any last-minute changes of heart, Bayrou may very well survive his week on a high wire. The Socialist party, whose support Bayrou’s government has been courting for weeks, announced Monday that it would not vote for a no-confidence motion linked to the budget.
But Bayrou isn’t out of the woods just yet.
The Socialists said they plan to put forward their own proposal to censure the government over what they believe is Bayrou’s refusal to uphold “republican values” — a shot at the prime minister for saying last week that it felt like parts of France are being “flooded” by immigrants.