PARIS — The reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral should have been a victory lap for French President Emmanuel Macron. Instead, the celebrations are shadowed by calls for him to step down after Prime Minister Michel Barnier handed in his resignation Thursday following a no-confidence vote that collapsed his government.
Barnier’s fragile parliamentary coalition was the first in more than six decades to fall apart in France, the second-biggest economic power in the European Union. The vote against Barnier came just three months after Macron appointed him, making him France's shortest-serving prime minister. Barnier will remain in a caretaker position until Macron appoints a new prime minister.
With the latest development plunging the country into deeper political uncertainty, Macron addressed the nation in a speech Thursday evening.
He thanked Barnier for his dedication and called the no-confidence vote that toppled him “unprecedented,” adding that the “extreme right and extreme left joined in an anti-republican front” and that some political groups had chosen “chaos.”
Macron said he will name a new prime minister “in the coming days,” as he appealed for unity and reiterated that he had no intention of stepping down.
The turn of events came just days before the grand reopening this weekend of the 860-year-old Notre Dame Cathedral, a jewel in Paris' skyline that was destroyed in a fire on April 15, 2019.
The widely anticipated reopening was seen as a major coup for Macron, who faced early skepticism over his vow to restore and reopen the cathedral to the public by 2024.
Heads of state and other dignitaries from around the world — including President-elect Donald Trump — are expected to flock to Paris for the reopening, which will be followed by a week of celebrations and ceremonies starting with a “reopening service” on Saturday. The visit will be Trump’s first overseas visit since he won the presidential election last month.
Macron took a televised tour of Notre Dame a few days ago, when he said he hoped its reopening would bring a “shock of hope” to the world, French media reported.
Barnier’s government collapsed after far-left and far-right lawmakers in the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, joined forces and voted overwhelmingly against him. A total of 331 lawmakers supported the no-confidence motion, dozens more than the 299 needed for it to pass.
The vote followed growing anger over Barnier’s efforts to push through a controversial 2025 budget by deploying a rarely used constitutional mechanism to circumvent parliamentary approval. He argued that the move, announced Monday, was necessary to ensure stability and address France’s ailing economy at a time of deep political division.
The National Assembly is made up of three major blocs: Macron’s centrist allies, the left-wing New Popular Front coalition and Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally.
While Macron’s position is not technically affected by Barnier’s resignation, his political future has become uncertain as pressure for him to step down grows. And as he now faces the difficult task of finding a prime minister whom a deeply divided parliament could approve, the chaotic fallout is widely seen as having been of Macron’s own making after he called surprise snap elections in June that resulted in a fractious and increasingly dysfunctional government.
“For the moment Macron’s position is not imperiled,” Douglas Webber, an emeritus professor of political science at INSEAD, told NBC News on Thursday. “But the longer he cannot put together a government, the more the pressure on him will grow to try to resolve the political impasse by resigning and calling new presidential elections — in which he could not stand again.”
