The French Green party announced Tuesday it would put forward a motion of no confidence against the government over its handling of last week’s record-breaking heat wave.
The bid to take down Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s minority government is unlikely to succeed without support from other opposition parties, such as the far-right National Rally or the more centrist-leaning Socialists. The Socialists have not supported any of the six no-confidence motions leveled against Lecornu since he became prime minister last year.
But the prime minister and his team have been the subject of intense criticism over preparedness for heat so extreme that mainland France recorded its highest average daily temperature ever for three consecutive days. Temperatures exceeded 40 degrees Celsius several times in major cities, and the country is not particularly well-equipped when it comes to air conditioning or other cooling systems.
A survey conducted by pollster Elabe on Monday and Tuesday, two of the heat wave’s hottest days, showed that two-thirds of respondents believed that Lecornu’s administration had mishandled the ongoing crisis. At the same time, 53 percent said they believe France “is not at all prepared to cope with this sort of heat wave.”
