For the first time in 60 years, France started the year without a budget bill after December’s vote triggered the collapse of Prime Minister Barnier’s three-month-old government. But this week, new PM Michel Bayrou managed to push through the budget – avoid the New Popular Front alliance's no-confidence vote and secure his own job in the process.  

 

Now, the opposition is pointing finger at one party in particular: the Socialists, who broke away from the NFP and decided not to rally behind the group’s vote. The party divisions in the NFP could mark the end of the alliance, and leave France’s left in limbo.  

 

Could the socialists deal the final blow to NFP?  

In this episode, host Giada Santana and Paris-based politics reporter Theo Bourgery-Gonse make sense of the french left's fragmentation and PM Bayrou's latest moves.