MANUEL VALLS (pictured), the reformist French prime minister, faces a trying parliamentary vote of confidence in his Socialist government today, as he tries to face down backbench rebels unhappy with the direction of economic policy. This will be his first vote of confidence since a government reshuffle in August, and Mr Valls has raised the stakes, declaring that times are sombre, that his party should behave responsibly and that the far-right National Front is “at the gates of power”. The government needs an absolute majority in the 577-seat National Assembly in order to survive the vote. Failure to secure this would lead to fresh legislative elections and prompt a political crisis in France.
Mr Valls survived a previous vote of confidence back in April, shortly after his nomination by President François Hollande, by a margin of 33 votes. At a later vote on the social-security budget in July, however, the gap shrank to just 18. Since then, a group of Socialist rebels has become increasingly dismayed by “brutal” austerity measures that they reckon they never signed up for. The shift in French policy was made crystal clear in August, when Arnaud Montebourg, the industry minister, was expelled after he lashed out at his own government’s economic policy. He has been replaced by Emmanuel Macron, a former investment banker. The rebels denounce Mr Valls’s business-friendly programme of payroll-tax cuts for companies as a “gift to business”, and his planned €50 billion of budget savings in 2015-2017 as excessive austerity.
