Trust

France, 'Let's block everything' protest grows. Macron: full support for Bayrou

Macron, referring to the collapse of French stock and bond markets this week ahead of the government's confidence vote, told members of his cabinet that France is solid

27 August 2025

French President Emmanuel Macron welcomes a guest at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, August 27, 2025. REUTERS/Abdul Saboor

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Key points

Markets
The French Confederation of Industry

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French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his ''total support'' for Prime Minister Francois Bayrou. This was stated by French government spokeswoman Sophie Primas, according to Bfmtv at the end of the Council of Ministers meeting held at the Elysée Palace. President of the Republic Macron, Primas said, is 'in perfect harmony, agreement and support' with Bayrou 'on the issues of producing more and spending public money better, which must now be rationalised'.

The Council of Ministers was held at the Elysée Palace in the presence of President Macron and Prime Minister Bayrou, who called for a vote of confidence for his government on8 September. A vote of confidence that Bayrou is likely to lose, recalls broadcaster Bfmtv. And the first names of the successor to the tenant of Matignon are beginning to circulate. Among them, that of Sebastien Lecornu, the former Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and Bruno Retailleau, the current Interior Minister.

Markets

Macron, referring to the collapse of French stock and bond markets this week ahead of the government's upcoming confidence vote, told members of his cabinet that France is solid, a government spokesman told reporters.

"France is a solid country with a solid economy... but we have to take the reins of our destiny into our own hands," said government spokeswoman Sophie Primas, describing Macron's statements. "It is a strong signal we are sending to the financial markets: we want an even more solid France."

Macron calls for calm. 'It is a rational and responsible vote' to confirm or not to confirm confidence in Prime Minister Bayrou and his government on 8 September. This was stated by the president during the Council of Ministers. 'The challenge can be met,' Macron added, arguing that 'we must neither deny nor be catastrophic. We have managed to restore public finances between 2017 and 2019, creating jobs and reducing taxes." Macron also told his ministers that 'this is a vote on results and principles, not a vote on the budget and this then gives the possibility to negotiate'.

The French Confederation of Industry

"Political decision-makers" in France "must overcome their rivalries", even though "things do not seem to be going in this direction". This was stated by Patrick Martin, the president of the Medef (Movement of Enterprises of France) in his opening speech at the French Entrepreneurs' Meeting, commenting on Prime Minister Francois Bayrou's decision to undergo a vote of confidence in the National Assembly on 8 September to pass the budgetary measures needed to clean up the country's super-debt.Martin said he was 'dismayed' by the negative 'first political reactions' coming from the oppositions, which 'increase our concern and distance us from the offensive action that is indispensable for the recovery of our country'.

Salvini versus Macron

"Insult means to offend someone about your physical appearance, about your family. Saying to a person who repeatedly says 'We are ready to fight' that I have no intention of Italians' children going to fight in Russia and Ukraine is not an insult, it is reasoning'. Deputy PM Matteo Salvini at the Rimini Meeting defended his words on French President Emmanuel Macron.

" Tàches al tram in Milanese, there's also the Neapolitan version, the Roman version, it's something nice to say 'go ahead you that I feel like laughing', quoting something cinematic," Salvini explained. "With all due respect to the highest French office that keeps saying 'I offer you the nuclear umbrella'. On 14 July he said 'We are ready to fight'. No, let's not make the military work to close the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Let's make the ambassadors and diplomats work'.

The protest

The number of adhesions to 'Let's block everything', the 10 September movement that originated on social networks and that threatens to paralyse France, continues to grow. After the Union syndicale Solidaires, the Cgt union also lined up in favour of the protest, which after the announcement of the vote of confidence in François Bayrou's government on 8 September took on even more meaning. "The impetus given to the popular initiative on 10 September shows the extent of social anger. The CGT hopes that this day will be a successful first stage and this includes a strike at the workplace'. The union 'therefore calls on its unions to talk to employees and organise a strike wherever possible'. The Solidaires union has also called for a strike on 10 September to mark the mobilisation day. For Solidaires, this movement 'expresses the multifaceted and growing social anger in the face of the Bayrou government's announcements' in view of the manoeuvre that the premier has announced should include 44 billion in savings. The 'desperate attempt by François Bayrou', who will ask for a vote of confidence in the Assemblée nationale, the French Chamber of Deputies, on 8 September, 'only reinforces our will to fight the unfair budget plan'. Among the parties lined up in support of the movement on 10 September La France Insoumise, the far-left party ofJean-Luc Mélenchon, which called for 'a general strike'. The French Greens, Les Ecologistes are in favour of the movement but have not called for mobilisation. "10 September does not belong to the political parties (...) Our position is clear to support without recovering," stressed the national secretary of Ecologie les Verts, Marine Tondelier, in recent days. The Socialist Party, led by its first secretary Olivier Faure, announced its adhesion 'not to instrumentalise but to offer a political release to the movement that is not the extreme right'. Fabien Roussel's Communist Party, on the other hand, sided with the movement. The main French trade union Cfdt, on the other hand, is not taking sides and is not joining the 10 September protest. "Citizens have every right to organise themselves into a movement and make their discontent known. The appeal of 10 September is a citizens' movement. But the Cfdt will not join it because the mode of action is not ours. Blocking everything, disobedience, is not the Cfdt method. And the union does not respond to political parties' injunctions,' explains Marylise Léon, general secretary of the Cfdt, the main French trade union.