Can the new French government survive?

France finally has a government more than two months after a snap election triggered by President Macron. With calls for a vote of no confidence from day one, how long can it survive?

Even though the left won the elections back in July, President Macron gave the job of prime minister to Michel Barnier, from the Republican centre right.

Macron justified his decision by saying the left would not be able to rule since it had failed to get a majority.

The summer snap election, triggered by Macron three years early, resulted in a loose alliance of left and green parties – New Popular Front, coming first, Macron’s centrist party, second, and the far right, National Rally, pushed into third place. Barnier’s Republicans polled fourth.

Michel Barnier, the former EU Brexit negotiator, has now selected allies of Macron, and right-wing conservatives, to serve as his ministers.

Opponents accuse Macron and Barnier of ignoring the election result.

Left-wing firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon called it a “government of losers”.

Former socialist president, François Hollande, says there should be a vote of no confidence in the new government.

At the other end of the spectrum, the far right National Rally called it a government with no future.

If President Macron’s hope for calling the early election was to slay his far-right adversaries, it hasn’t worked. National Rally is instead happily biding its time.

“The French, who twice expressed during the recent elections their desire to break away from seven years of renouncements and failures of Macronism, again find themselves tonight with a reshuffled government, far from the desire for change and alternatives”, said National Rally’s Marine Le Pen.

“The great alternative that we called for, we will continue to prepare it to allow France to rise back up.”

Caught between the two extremes, the new government will somehow have to find a majority to get its budget passed.

To make matters worse, French national debt is way over the limit and the EU is threatening to get tough if the new government doesn’t cut spending.

But speaking in his first major TV interview since his appointment, Michel Barnier appeared to rule out austerity measures.

“I will not further increase taxes on the French, who already pay the highest taxes among its European partners, not on the most modest people, not on workers or on the middle class.

“But I will not exclude a national effort that has to be done to improve the situation.”

That appears to be a hint that he will squeeze the wealthiest. Possibly in an attempt to appease the left.

As Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier had to find compromise between,  what at times seemed, impossibly divergent positions. He is going to need all those skills now if his government is to survive.