French Prime Minister Michel Barnier risks being deposed by a hostile parliament this week after his government pushed through a social security financing bill that faced opposition from both the right and the left.
The conservative Barnier, who formed a minority government in September after an inconclusive general election, is now facing a no-confidence vote that could force him to quit.
France's leftist political bloc will lodge a no-confidence motion to topple Barnier, parliamentary group leader Mathilde Panot of the far-left France Unbowed party said after Barnier's announcement.
Far-right National Rally (RN) party leader Marine Le Pen said her party would table its own no-confidence motion but would also vote against Barnier in any no-confidence motion put forward by other parties.
"The French have had enough," she said. "Maybe they thought with Michel Barnier things would get better, but they were even worse."
If all National Rally lawmakers vote with the left to topple Barnier, the government will not survive.
The RN has opposed several parts of the government's 2025 budget plan, including the social security financing. In a concession to the right, the prime minister's office said it was scrapping plans for a less generous prescription drug reimbursement policy from next year.
The National Rally is the largest single party in the 577-seat National Assembly, with more than 140 deputies.
Barnier resorted to using executive powers to adopt the bill without a vote, a procedure outlined under Article 49.3 of the French constitution.
Watch moreArticle 49.3: The French government’s special constitutional power
The no-confidence motion could come as early as Wednesday.
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.
Barnier scrapped a previously planned increase on an electricity tax in a concession to critics last week.
Debt threat
The Senate, where right-wing parties have a majority, partly approved the 2025 budget Sunday, giving the green light to government revenue projections in a vote boycotted by the left.
The Socialist Party, part of the left-wing opposition alliance, told Barnier it would vote against him if he used Article 49.3 to push through a budget.
France escaped a debt downgrade by S&P last week, with the ratings agency saying that "despite ongoing political uncertainty, we expect France to comply – with a delay – with the EU fiscal framework and to gradually consolidate public finances".
Barnier has promised to improve France's fiscal position by €60 billion ($64 billion) in 2025 in the hope of cutting the public-sector deficit to 5 percent of gross domestic product from 6.1 percent of GDP this year.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)