Government downfall tests Macron like never before

 President Emmanuel Macron’s escape route out of the political and economic crisis gripping France now looks almost impossibly narrow.

On Monday, his key ally Prime Minister François Bayrou was toppled in a bloodbath of a no-confidence vote, with 364 lawmakers voting to oust him and only 194 coming out in support.

Macron’s office promptly said he would move in “the next few days” to appoint the country’s fifth prime minister in less than two years, but there are grave doubts that the new appointee will prove any more successful than Bayrou in forcing through the tens of billions of euros of budget cuts needed to save the EU’s second-biggest economy from a ballooning debt crisis.