Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service Studios in London.

I'm Tim Franks. And we're beginning with France on the cusp of crisis. The Prime Minister Michel Barnier has rammed through Parliament without a vote, a controversial new social security budget.

In a restive National Assembly, Mr Barnier said that he had decided to use a special constitutional provision

to get the budget adopted.

The French people are calling for, and expect, stability, are calling for and expect stability, are calling for and expect transparency

for businesses and for daily lives at a point when our country has so much to do to defend its

interests and its influence in Europe and in the world. That's why, in the

framework of the Constitution, I commit the responsibility of the government, of my government,

on the entirety of the Social Security Budget Bill for 2025. Well, you heard the Prime Minister say

at the start there that the French people are calling for and expecting stability.

That seems to be the last thing on offer, at least when it comes to the politics of this,

because the two big blocks of parties on the hard left and hard right now say they will vote to bring the government down within days, probably just later this week. And they have the

numbers to do that, all of which leaves France facing political upheaval at a time when it's also

in a deep economic hole. Let's hear first from one of the members of Parliament who will be

backing the imminent no-confidence motion in the government.

Natalie Oziol is with the hard-left France-ins-soumise,

or France Unbowed Party.

What can be achieved by bringing down the government now?

We are in a deep, huge political crisis, which is even a crisis in the regime in France. And it has been so since July

the 7th when Macron decided not to respect the result of the snap elections and decided to

appoint a right-wing prime minister in spite of the victory of the new Popular Front. So this was

the first problem.

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