Step 1 of 5 · President (Art. 8)
The President chooses
The President appoints the Prime Minister freely: there is no vote of investiture and no deadline. After the July 2024 run-off, Michel Barnier was named on 5 September, almost two months later.
✶ Articles 49 & 50 · Responsibility of the government
288 of 574.
A French government does not need a majority to take office, only to avoid a majority against it. With three blocs and none above 220 seats, every government since 2024 has lived on the arithmetic below. Build one, or try to bring it down.
0 deputies with you · 289 needed of 577 in office
Government
Unaligned
Opposition
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Group colours are the Assemblée nationale's own. Group membership as of 4 November 2026.
Every censure vote of the 17th legislature
23 motions,
1 success.
Each bar is one motion; the line is the absolute majority of deputies in office that day (288 or 289). Motions answering 49.3 are marked. Only the motion of 4 December 2024 against Michel Barnier, backed by the left and the RN together, cleared it.
- 8 October 2024 49.2 197
- 4 December 2024 49.3 331
- 16 January 2025 49.2 131
- 5 February 2025 49.3 128
- 5 February 2025 49.3 122
- 10 February 2025 49.3 115
- 12 February 2025 49.3 121
- 19 February 2025 49.2 181
- 4 June 2025 49.2 116
- 1 July 2025 49.2 189
- 16 October 2025 49.2 271
- 16 October 2025 49.2 144
- 14 January 2026 49.2 256
- 14 January 2026 49.2 142
- 23 January 2026 49.3 269
- 23 January 2026 49.3 142
- 27 January 2026 49.3 267
- 27 January 2026 49.3 140
- 2 February 2026 49.3 260
- 2 February 2026 49.3 135
- 25 February 2026 49.2 140
- 25 February 2026 49.2 108
- 6 July 2026 49.2 132
Votes for each motion and the majority required, from the Assembly's roll-call data · Scrutins open data ↗
How a government forms and falls
From Élysée to censure
Step 2 of 5 · Prime Minister
The government is named
Ministers are appointed by the President on the Prime Minister's proposal. They cannot remain deputies or senators while in government; their substitutes take their seats.
Step 3 of 5 · Prime Minister (Art. 49.1)
Optional: a confidence vote
The Prime Minister may ask the Assembly to approve the government's programme. Recent minority governments have not, because a simple majority against would bring them down.
Step 4 of 5 · Assembly (Art. 49.2)
Surviving
A tenth of deputies (58) can table a censure motion at any time. It passes only with an absolute majority of the deputies in office voting for it; abstentions help the government.
Step 5 of 5 · Assembly (Art. 50)
Falling
If a censure motion passes, or the Assembly rejects the government's programme or a text on which it staked its responsibility, the Prime Minister must resign. It happened in 1962 and on 4 December 2024.
Context
Majorities,
then none.
From 1958 to 2022 most Presidents had a governing majority in the Assembly, their own or, during cohabitation, their opponents'. The 1988–1993 and 2022–2024 Assemblies were the exceptions: governments short of a majority that relied on Article 49.3 to pass budgets.
The 2024 election produced three blocs: the left alliance (New Popular Front) first in seats, President Macron's centrists second, the RN and its allies third, with the Republican right in between. The Prime Ministers since have governed from the centre and right with roughly 210 seats, surviving because the left and the far right rarely vote for the same motion.