French PM Bayrou’s confidence vote an ‘absolutely wild gamble’, expert says

A week ahead of the confidence vote on the French government, a political expert has described it as an “absolutely wild gamble”. Andrew Smith says that while French Prime Minister François Bayrou has been saying he has not taken a summer holiday since he’s been trying to find an answer to France’s budgetary crisis, the PM may instead be taking forced holidays in September after his government falls. Smith, who is a historian of modern France at Queen Mary University of London, says the “parliamentary logic just is not there” to support Bayrou. He spoke to us in Perspective.