PARIS: French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said on Sunday the destiny of France was at stake in a forthcoming confidence vote, which he called to resolve a budget standoff but is expected to lose.
The September 8 vote in parliament will not decide “the fate of the prime minister” but “the fate of France,” Bayrou said, during an interview with four news channels.
The prime minister stunned France on Monday by saying he would request the vote in a divided parliament, as he tries to garner enough support for his minority government’s plan to slash spending — even as opposition parties say they will not back him.
“I think that the days ahead are crucial,” the 74-year-old prime minister said in the interview with franceinfo, LCI, BFMTV and Cnews.
“If you think that I can give up the battles that I fight, that I am fighting here, that I have been fighting for years and that I will continue to fight in the future, you are mistaken.”
Earlier on Sunday, Socialist leader Olivier Faure said the party’s decision to vote against Bayrou’s government was final.
“The only thing I’m waiting for him to do now is to say goodbye,” Faure said, referring to the prime minister.
Bayrou has said sacrifices must be made to ensure France’s future and bring down the country’s debt.
He said he wanted to save about 44 billion euros ($51 billion) with measures that include reducing the number of holidays and placing a freeze on spending increases.
But the measures have proved deeply unpopular, with seven out of 10 French people saying they want Bayrou to lose the confidence vote, according to a recent poll.
Bayrou’s gamble has raised fears that France risks a new period of political and financial instability.
Speaking earlier Sunday, Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin called on political forces to find a compromise, saying he was concerned that the legacy of the Fifth Republic’s founding father Charles De Gaulle was at risk.
“General De Gaulle’s institutions are at stake if we fall back into the instability of the Fourth Republic, where governments came and went, where the authority of the state was not guaranteed, where the administration had no leader,” Darmanin said in a speech.
French PM says ‘fate of France’ at stake in confidence vote
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French PM says ‘fate of France’ at stake in confidence vote
Trump ‘very disappointed’ with UK’s Starmer for blocking use of air bases, Telegraph says
- UK PM then said bases could be used in “defensive” operations
- Trump says it took “too long” for Starmer to change his mind
LONDON: Donald Trump said he was “very disappointed” with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for not allowing the US to use the Diego Garcia air base to carry out strikes on Iran, the Daily Telegraph quoted the US president as saying in an interview.
Britain had reportedly initially denied the US permission to conduct air strikes from its bases, but on Sunday evening Starmer said he was accepting a request for their use in any “defensive” strikes the US wanted to make against Iranian targets.
In an interview published on Monday Trump told the British newspaper that it took “too long” for Starmer to change his mind.
“That’s probably never happened between our countries before,” he told the Telegraph, adding: “It sounds like he was worried about the legality.”
Trump said Starmer should have approved from the get-go the American use of Diego Garcia — a strategically important US-UK air base in the Indian Ocean — saying Iran was responsible for killing “a lot of people from your country.”
Britain was not involved in the joint US-Israel air strikes on Iran that killed the country’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Saturday.
Since attacks on Iran started on Saturday, Iran has been targeting Gulf countries with missiles, and on Sunday an Iranian-made drone hit Britain’s RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus, causing limited damage and no casualties.
Trump said it was “useful” that the US would now be able to launch operations from Diego Garcia, as he also criticized a deal Starmer has made over the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, where Diego Garcia is based.
