Chaos in France is a warning sign to Britain, writes James Hanson

France has been plunged into fresh political chaos after the government of Francois Bayrou was booted from office after losing a vote of confidence in the National Assembly. It means President Macron now needs to appoint a fifth prime minister in less than two years - or call snap elections.

Bayrou had, rightly, been proposing spending cuts to bring down France’s staggering national debt. He’d spent months warning of the "existential" threat to France if it didn’t address its €3.4 trillion liability. In his 2026 budget, he proposed scrapping two national holidays and freezing welfare payments and pensions, aiming to save €44 billion. And yet both the hard left and the hard right rejected Bayrou’s proposals - causing his government to collapse within just nine months of taking office.

The UK, of course, is no stranger to a high turnover of PMs. As such, it is hard not to feel some relief that this time it’s the French, not us, in a shambles. But make no mistake, there should be no room for schadenfreude. The problems facing France are the same as those facing Britain: unsustainable debt, low growth, and both a public and a political class seemingly unwilling to countenance any notion of belt-tightening.

With unnerving symmetry, the debt mountain facing France is almost the same size as the UK’s - approximately £2.9 trillion. Like the French, our welfare bill is ballooning. A thousand people a day are signing up for Personal Independence Payments. Over 20 per cent of the working age population is economically inactive - many surviving on state subsidy. Yet Labour backbenchers stage rebellions over the most modest of welfare cuts and Reform UK is calling for the two-child benefit limit to be scrapped.

France’s state pension age of 62 has, unsurprisingly, contributed to the country’s financial woes. But back in Blighty, we are little better. We now spend more on pensions than defence, schools and police combined. The triple lock alone is forecast to add more than £15 billion a year to our state pension bill by 2030. And yet the Tories campaigned at the last election to introduce a ‘triple-lock plus’ and Labour’s attempt to restrict winter fuel payments was met with public outrage.

Without drastic and immediate action, things are only going to get worse. The budget deficit is growing again, standing at £148.3bn in 2024/25. 30-year bond yields are now twice what they were a decade ago. The OBR projects the national debt will reach 274% of GDP within 50 years. That means, on current trajectories, 34 per cent of all government spending will go towards debt interest within my lifetime - not paying down the debt, just paying the interest.

Britain now has the highest tax burden since the end of the Second World War. Government spending accounts for 45 per cent of the entire UK economy. Yet does anyone feel they’re getting more bang for their buck? Is it easier to get a GP appointment these days? Are there more police on our streets? Of course not. At the heart of voters’ discontent is the sense they’re getting less for more. The reason is that an ever-growing chunk of their ever-growing tax burden is being wasted on debt interest.

On one level, I can understand politicians’ reluctance to talk about this. Firstly, any conversation involving the word ‘fiscal’ is enough to make most voters fall into a coma. Many wouldn’t even be able to explain the difference between the debt and the deficit. And with living standards so squeezed, the notion that further spending cuts are required, or that taxes may need to rise further, is anathema to much of the electorate.

Yet the British people have a greater propensity for understanding hard truths than many give them credit for. Cameron and Osborne’s austerity programme was broadly accepted by voters because the logic of it was explained over and over. They were re-elected in 2015 not just despite it, but because of it. The argument for balancing the budget had been won, and it can be again.

It is a quarter of a century since the UK last ran a surplus. If we were to start running them again, we could, over time, create more room for tax cuts and public spending. In other words, get more for less instead of less for more. It’s a hard sell, but the status quo cannot continue. If not, France’s fate - or worse - lies ahead.

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