The government of François Bayrou, a centrist prime minister who has been in office for just nine months, collapsed on Monday in the latest sign of a France reduced to chronic political instability and incapacity to confront its growing financial crisis. The National Assembly, or lower house of Parliament, voted overwhelmingly against Mr. Bayrou in a confidence motion he had called with the aim of setting out the gravity of France’s ballooning debt and budget deficit, and the need to confront them by finding annual savings of at least $51 billion. The vote was 364 against Mr. Bayrou’s government and 194 in favor in the 577-seat lower house, a crushing defeat for the prime minister. Fatalistic in the face of a parliamentary impasse, Mr. Bayrou had, even before the debate began, invited his entourage to a “convivial moment,” or farewell soirée, this evening. With four prime ministers in the past 20 months, and a fifth likely to be appointed now, the fall of French governments, once unusual, has become close to mundane.
