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Jordan Bardella, the party chief of France’s Rassemblement National, said on Monday that the party would not hesitate to bring down Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s minority government over a belt-tightening draft budget.
Ahead of a key vote in the National Assembly expected on Monday afternoon, negotiations between Barnier and the RN to find a compromise appeared stalled, raising the risk that the government could fall as early as this week.
The budget’s fate and that of Barnier’s administration remain largely in the hands of the RN, the biggest single party and a key voting bloc in the National Assembly.
“The RN will trigger the mechanism to vote the censure unless there is a last-minute miracle and Barnier changes his draft law between now and 3pm,” Bardella told RTL radio on Monday.
“I don’t have much hope he will do so given how he has ignored and scorned us [and our proposals] in recent months.”
RN leader Marine Le Pen has insisted all its “red line” demands must be met if the government wants to avoid a no-confidence vote.
Investors have become increasingly concerned over the fate of the draft budget, which includes €60bn of tax increases and spending cuts that Barnier has said are needed to bring down the country’s debt pile.
The euro weakened 0.5 per cent against the dollar in early trading on Monday.
This is a developing story
