The government still faces two challenges in the coming weeks: the risk of a no-confidence vote and a tight budget deadline.

French President Emmanuel Macron named a new government led by Prime Minister Michel Barnier Saturday, marked by a shift to the right 11 weeks after an inconclusive parliamentary election. It marked "a return to Macronism" and so had "no future whatsoever",

French President Emmanuel Macron appointed Antoine Armand as finance minister, thrusting a 33-year-old with limited political experience into an urgent budget battle in which he must bring fiscal discipline while maintaining tacit support from the far right to avoid government collapse.