Anger erupts, with move described as 'anti-democratic', 'authoritarian'

France's President Emmanuel Macron's government was forced to resort to a constitutional technicality on Wednesday to get its budget through Parliament without a vote, after failing to win backing for it from a divided house.

Critics said the use of the statutory instrument known as Article 49.3 was "anti-democratic" and provoked motions of no confidence in the government, although they are unlikely to be more than token gestures.

The wording of the article says that the prime minister "after deliberation by the council of ministers", can force a bill through the National Assembly with a no vote, and the only way to prevent a bill from passing this way is for the government to be overthrown.

Since 2008, the use of Article 49.3 has been restricted to just one deployment per parliamentary session, apart from in the cases of the state and social security budgets, where it can be used without limitation.

In April this year, Macron was elected for a second presidential term of office, but just weeks later his Ensemble alliance won 245 seats in the country's Parliament, short of the 289 needed for an outright majority, leaving him in a difficult position.

"We need to give our country a budget," said Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne as she announced the use of the clause to assembly members.

Against a backdrop of cheering from supporters and boos from opponents, she went on "every opposition party has confirmed their intention to reject the text", but "the French are expecting … action and results from us".

Recently, France has been hit by a wave of industrial action affecting fuel depots, which led to major protests at the weekend, which also attracted opponents of Macron's long-running and deeply divisive plans to reform the country's pension system, that could see many employees having to work for longer than they had planned.

After the announcement in the assembly, Mathilde Panot, from the populist left-wing France Unbowed party, told reporters that "Macronism has become a form of authoritarianism", while her colleague Eric Coquerel called the move "an anti-democratic power grab coupled with disregard".

Cyrielle Chatelain of the Green Party said: "Parliament's work has been swept away in a few hours." Fabien Roussel of the Parti Communiste added that it was a "denial of democracy".

Groups on the left and right both planned no confidence motions, but with neither side likely to back the other, their chances of success were regarded as minimal, and Olivier Marleix, leader of the conservative Republicans group, declined to get involved, saying it would be "useless to pile chaos on top of chaos".