François Bayrou may have thought it was a smart pre-emptive move to call a parliamentary vote of confidence in his minority government ahead of a planned national protest day on 10 September and the start of a fraught parliamentary budget season.
Determined not to meet the same fate as his predecessor who was toppled by parliament last December, the French prime minister appears to have chosen political hara-kiri instead. His near-certain ejection by a hung parliament on Monday (8 September) is set to turn a smouldering political deadlock into a blazing crise de régime.
