In early September, I warned that France’s politics could ignite Europe’s financial powder keg. The fuse, I suggested, might be lit when Prime Minister François Bayrou faced an inevitable confidence vote, which he would lose.

That prediction proved correct. On September 8, the National Assembly rejected Bayrou by 364 votes to 194. The cabinet of his successor, Sébastien Lecornu, lasted just 14 hours – the shortest-lived administration in modern French history.

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