PARIS. The political struggle over austerity measures combined with France's specific political system forced a result on Monday evening - the country will have its fourth prime minister in the past year.

President Emmanuel Macron, who has served since 2017, must now look for his seventh prime minister after a vote of no confidence in the government of Prime Minister Francois Bayrou.

Like his predecessor Michel Barnier, Prime Minister Bayrou was also frustrated by austerity measures - he tried to present next year's state budget in which he would save 43.8 billion euros, thereby reducing the planned deficit from 5.4 percent to 4.6 percent of GDP, Politico writes.

On Monday, only 194 MPs voted for confidence in Bayrou's government, 364 against. The prime minister will therefore officially submit his resignation on Tuesday.

The BBC assessed Bayrou as a consensus politician who has a penchant for strong speeches and who called Monday's surprise vote himself to use"shock therapy" to pressure politicians into agreeing to a solution to France's growing public debt, which the station described as a crisis.

French national debt is currently at around 114 percent of GDP and rising.

1. Why did the government get into a crisis in the first place?

The current period of political crisis began with early parliamentary elections called by President Emmanuel Macron for June 2024.

In the European Parliament elections, the far-right National Rally party won a landslide victory, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to call snap elections. They were supposed to clarify the political situation in Paris, but they complicated it. An alliance of left-wing political parties won the elections, but no bloc won a majority.

As Politico points out, two months without a government followed in France, after which centrists close to Emmanuel Macron formed a minority cabinet, allowing the president to appoint Michel Barnier, the former EU Brexit negotiator, as prime minister.

He took up the post with the determination to respect all forces in parliament, which meant breaking the taboo against Marine Le Pen's National Rally.

However, it was this that ultimately foreshadowed Barnier's downfall, as she felt pushed aside, while Barnier had to reckon with the possibility that too much cooperation with the National Association would make him impossible in the eyes of the more moderate parties.