PARIS (Reuters) - French Prime Minister Michel Barnier said on Monday he would try to ram a social security bill through parliament without a vote, leaving him more vulnerable than ever to being toppled in a no-confidence vote by far-right and leftist rivals.
After a last-minute concession was not enough to win support from the far-right National Rally, Barnier decided to invoke article 49.3 of the constitution to push through the bill without parliament.
Opposition parties had warned that this would lead them to put forward a motion of no-confidence in Barnier's government.
"We are at a moment of truth ...that puts all of us in front of our responsibilities," Barnier told parliament as he put his government's fate in its hands.
"The French will not forgive us for putting the interests of individuals before the future of the country," he added.
The opposition now has 24 hours to table a no-confidence motion. The vote could take place as early as Wednesday. No French government has been forced out by such a vote since 1962.
Ahead of the vote in the National Assembly, RN chief Marine Le Pen said she wanted Barnier to make further concessions and scrap plans to stop linking pensions to inflation on Jan. 1 if he wanted his government to survive.
"It is up to the government to accept it or not," she said, leaving open a small window for further negotiations ahead of the vote on the no-confidence motion.
Barnier's struggles to get the 2025 budget through a deeply divided parliament threaten to plunge France into its second political crisis in six months, underlining the instability that has taken hold in capitals across the EU.
Ukraine will need tens of thousands of them next year according to Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.
Since its constitution in September, Barnier's minority government has relied on RN support for its survival. The budget bill, which seeks to rein in France's spiraling public deficit through 60 billion euros ($63 billion) in tax hikes and spending cuts, may snap that tenuous link.