Barnier expected to resign as France's festering political crisis rumbles on

By Gabriel Stargardter

PARIS (Reuters) - French Prime Minister Michel Barnier is expected to resign on Friday after far-right and leftist lawmakers voted to topple his government, plunging France into its second major political crisis in six months.

Barnier, a veteran politician who was formerly the European Union's Brexit negotiator, will be the shortest serving prime minister in modern French history. No French government had lost a confidence vote since Georges Pompidou's in 1962.

The hard left and far right punished Barnier for ramming an unpopular budget through an unruly hung parliament without a vote. The draft budget had sought 60 billion euros ($63.07 billion) in savings in a drive to shrink a gaping deficit.

Barnier's resignation will cap weeks of tensions over the budget, which Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally said was too harsh on working people. It also further weakens the standing of President Emmanuel Macron, who precipitated the current crisis with an ill-fated decision to call a snap election ahead of the summer Paris Olympics.

Macron faces growing calls to resign, but he has a mandate until 2027 and cannot be pushed out. Still, the long-running political debacle has left him a diminished figure. 

France now risks ending the year without a stable government or a 2025 budget, although the constitution allows special measures that would avert a U.S.-style government shutdown.

France's political turmoil will further weaken a European Union already reeling from the implosion of Germany's coalition government, and weeks before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.

Trump is due to visit Paris on Saturday for the unveiling of the renovated Notre Dame cathedral, and Macron wants to name a prime minister before then, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

France now faces a period of deep political uncertainty that is already unnerving investors in French sovereign bonds and stocks. Earlier this week, France's borrowing costs briefly exceeded those of Greece, generally considered far more risky.

Any new prime minister would face the same challenges as Barnier in getting bills, including the 2025 budget, adopted by a divided parliament. There can be no new parliamentary election before July.

(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Bill Berkrot)