Mr Macron seems to want to appoint a successor swiftly. He needs a new team in order to use special measures to roll over this year’s budget provisions, without inflation adjustments, into 2025. Various veteran centrists or conservatives could be stop-gap options.

France’s government fell after MPs voted to oust prime minister Michel Barnier’s administration and plunge the country into fresh political turmoil and without a budget.

For Michel Barnier, negotiating with the Tories will have seemed a breeze compared with his short stint as French prime minister. The EU’s former Brexit negotiator is on the cusp of watching his

French President Emmanuel Macron aims to install a new prime minister quickly if his government falls on Wednesday, three sources told Reuters.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said on Tuesday night that it was “political fiction” to suggest he would resign over the crisis engulfing his government.