The French government is bracing for a widely anticipated vote of no-confidence on Wednesday, but the looming crisis is only nominally about Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s proposed state budget. Just beneath the surface is the yearslong feud between Marine Le Pen and President Macron — and if the former has her way, Mr. Macron won’t be president for much longer. 

In the meantime, the drama that unfolded Monday at the National Assembly at the heart of Paris gave the impression that France may actually be ungovernable. To audible gasps of derision, a stern-faced Mr. Barnier invoked a rarely used constitutional mechanism called Article 49.3. He did so to try to push through the contentious 2025 budget without parliamentary approval.

Without a majority Mr. Barnier, who was appointed to his post by President Macron, knew he was unlikely to get an approval. So, ironically, he argued that bypassing a vote was essential to maintaining stability amid a fractured legislature where heavyweights on opposing sides of the political spectrum have essentially stripped the center of a unified voice.

Meantime, Madame Le Pen is doing her part to unify some of those disparate voices, as was made clear when she stated that the budget “was profoundly unfair” and that it would have “made the French pay for Macron’s incompetence of seven years.” The backlash was immediate. Madame Le Pen’s National Rally and the leftist New Popular Front each filed no-confidence motions.

This set the stage for a vote that as soon as Wednesday could see Mr. Barnier shown to the exit. Madame Le Pen also said that “Mr. Barnier did not wish to respond to the request of the 11 million voters of the National Rally. He said everyone would assume their responsibilities, so we will assume ours. We are tabling a motion of censure and we will vote for censure of the Government.”

Not helping is that right now France is fiscally unfit. The stillborn budget, which Mr. Macron had tasked Mr. Barnier to formulate, would have slashed $42 billion in spending and raised taxes by more than $20 billion. As it happens, French borrowing costs have risen above those of famously financial crisis-scarred Greece for the first time. French stocks and the euro fell on Monday.

So French creditworthiness is now being called into question. As this showdown goes on, so too is Mr. Macron’s longevity being questioned.  Should the no-confidence motion succeed, he would remain president but would also need to appoint a new prime minister — but that is just the technocratic view. If Mr. Barnier falls, Mr. Macron’s resignation could be next. 

Many on all sides are clamoring for the President of the Republic to step down. Mr. Macron has only enhanced his reputation for aloofness by embarking this week on a state visit to Saudi Arabia. While that is not exactly the flight to Varennes, the optics are très mauvaises, telegraphing that he chooses to be above a fray precipitated by his own political gambles.

According to some French press reports, the haughty 46-year-old président has been thinking about Mr. Barnier’s successor for several days now, with such possiblities as the current defense minister, Sébastien Lecornu, and a former prime minister, Bernard Cazeneuve. The longer Monsieur Macron dodges this, the tougher it will be to extricate himself from it when he returns to Paris.

On the far left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the France Unbowed party has already tried to impeach the president. On Monday, Mr.  Mélenchon wrote on X that Barnier “is going to fall,” adding that “Macron, solely responsible for the financial and political crisis, must go to give voice to the votes of the French.” Clearly the fabric of the Fifth Republic is fraying.

With the censure motion now on the table, the combined votes of the left and the National Rally will constitute a sufficient majority to bring down the government as soon as Wednesday. The constitution prevents new early parliamentary elections before a year has passed. So one that might try to get a real majority in the National Assembly technically must wait until July — unless Monsieur Macron were to resign before his term expires in 2027. 

As for now, as Madame Le Pen on Monday reminded her countrymen that the French constitution “gives the president three options: a reshuffle, the dissolution of the Assembly, or his resignation.” Mr. Macron has already tried the first two — for his nemesis and millions of French exhausted by months of political uncertainty, that third option would appear to be the charm.