French President Emmanuel Macron faces one of the trickiest moments of his presidency after his prime minister, François Bayrou, was toppled in a bruising confidence vote in the National Assembly, leaving the French leader with no easy path to form a stable government.

The defeat of Bayrou, Macron’s fourth prime minister in barely two years, underscored the depth of the gridlock since the president gambled on dissolving parliament last year. Macron’s centrist bloc has been stranded without a majority, while the far-right and the far-left smell blood, demanding new parliamentary elections.

The numbers in the National Assembly were unforgiving: 364 out of the 577 deputies voted against his government, and only 194 backed him. New Feature

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