Mr Macron seems to want to appoint a successor swiftly. He needs a new team in order to use special measures to roll over this year’s budget provisions, without inflation adjustments, into 2025. Various veteran centrists or conservatives could be stop-gap options.

France’s government fell after MPs voted to oust prime minister Michel Barnier’s administration and plunge the country into fresh political turmoil and without a budget.

Macron saying that the government might survive. Barnier suggesting it's possible as well. Wishful wishful thinking, Kriti? Certainly wishful thinking. The odds are stacked against them. But in the words of Michel Barnier,

French lawmakers will vote on Wednesday on no-confidence motions which are all but certain to oust the fragile coalition of Michel Barnier, deepening the political crisis in the euro zone's second-largest economy.