Paris
CNN
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French Prime Minister Michel Barnier was forced to resign just three months into his term after lawmakers on the left and right joined forces to support a motion of no confidence, plunging the country into deeper political instability.

A total of 331 of 577 MPs voted against Barnier’s fragile government, seizing the opportunity to oust the veteran politician – and renowned negotiator – after he tried to push through part of his government’s annual budget on Monday.

It is the first French government since 1962 to be defeated in a motion of no confidence, and Barnier is now on the verge of becoming France’s shortest-serving prime minister in history.

Barnier’s cabinet is now expected to serve in an interim role until French President Emmanuel Macron names new leadership.

But that will prove a delicate task as the increasingly vulnerable president is forced to appease lawmakers at both extremes of French politics.

Macron appointed Barnier as leader of a minority government after a snap election called by the president in the summer split the French parliament into three factions, each falling well short of the majority.

The situation immediately appeared untenable and collapsed at the first major hurdle on Monday when Barnier was forced to use a constitutional mechanism that bypassed a vote in parliament on his 2025 budget.

That allowed rival left-wing MPs, who had long vowed to oust him, to table a motion of no confidence in response, and the far-right National Rally party backed the motion to force it through on Wednesday. The extreme right had also made a similar request.

During Wednesday’s debate in the National Assembly, Barnier made his case, telling MPs he was “not afraid” but warning that his removal would “make everything more difficult.”

But he had to stand by as a lawmaker after lawmakers called for his ouster.

Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right Rassemblement National, said during the debate that Barnier’s “stubborn adherence to dogmas and doctrines prevented him from making the slightest concession that could have prevented this outcome.”

The day before the vote, Barnier accused the far right of political blackmail, saying they had agreed to his concessions on electricity tax increases and medical aid for the undocumented before demanding more.

The far-right leader has been the main opponent throughout Macron’s era, challenging him in two presidential elections and now sending his chosen prime minister to resolve a simmering crisis.

She placed the blame for the fall of Barnier’s government squarely on Macron’s shoulders.

“He bears the greatest responsibility for the current situation,” she said after the vote. Macron “will assume his responsibility, he will do what his reason and conscience dictate,” she said in an interview with French broadcaster TF1.

Macron will give an address to the French nation on Thursday evening at 8 p.m., the Elysee Palace said.

France is now nearing the end of a remarkably volatile year with no prime minister and no budget. Macron must choose a new prime minister, but it is hard to imagine a candidate who would expect support from both the left and the far right.

A budget must also be passed before the December 21 deadline. Should that deadline be missed, the government could still enact a “financial policy continuity law,” which would avoid a gridlock by allowing the government to raise taxes and pay salaries while capping spending at 2024 levels according to the rating agency S&P Global Ratings.

Another early election is not possible because the current parliament must meet until June, a year after the last vote.

Instead, Macron is facing increasing calls for his resignation – a demand that MPs like Le Pen may want to issue an ultimatum in return for supporting a prime ministerial candidate.

After his remarkable move after the European elections in June, when he responded to the pan-European gains of the far right by calling early parliamentary elections in France, Macron is becoming increasingly unpopular.

The dismal results of that nationwide poll showed left and right parties pressuring Macron’s centrist bloc, with all three falling well short of a parliamentary majority.

Macron is halfway through his second and final term as president, but the results of early elections have significantly complicated the final phase of his term and weakened his authority at home and abroad.

According to government calculations, Barnier’s financing law, which triggered his downfall, includes tax increases and spending cuts worth 60 billion euros, aimed at reducing the country’s budget deficit to 5 percent next year. Some of the measures are extremely unpopular with opposition parties, such as delaying the adjustment of pension increases to inflation.

“Finally the Barnier government has fallen, as has its brutal budget, as we knew it would happen, for a very simple reason: it was a provocation of the French voters,” said Mathilde Panot, president of the left-wing LFI- NFP. Wing block, who had introduced the motion, immediately after the vote.

On Monday, worries about the impact of the political maelstrom on France’s public finances briefly pushed the government’s borrowing costs above Greece’s.

France’s public debt is approaching 111% of gross domestic product (GDP), according to S&P Global Ratings – a level unseen since World War II – in part because the state has spent heavily to shore up the economy ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting energy crisis protect from Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Lauren Kent and Hanna Ziady contributed reporting.