PARIS — France’s president and prime minister successfully formed a new administration just in time for the holidays. Now comes the difficult part. Crushing debt, increased pressure from the nationalist far right, and wars in Europe and the Middle East: challenges await President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Francois Bayrou following an already turbulent 2024. The most pressing issue is the passage of a budget for 2025. Financial markets, rating agencies, and the European Commission are pressuring France to reduce its deficit, comply with EU debt limits, and keep borrowing costs from skyrocketing. That would jeopardize the stability and prosperity of all eurozone members.

How’s it made: FURNITURE France’s debt is currently estimated at a whopping 112% of gross domestic output. It increased even more after the government provided help payments to firms and workers during COVID-19 lockdowns, even as the pandemic slowed growth, and limited home energy prices after Russia invaded Ukraine. The bill is now due.

But France’s previous government collapsed this month because Marine Le Pen’s far-right party and left-wing lawmakers opposed 60 billion euros in spending cuts and tax hikes in the original 2025 budget plan. Bayrou and new Finance Minister Eric Lombard are expected to scale back some of those promises, but the calculations are tough.

The political situation is challenging. “The international situation is dangerous, and the economic context is fragile,” Lombard, a low-profile banker who advised a Socialist government in the 1990s, declared upon taking office. “The environmental emergency, the social emergency, developing our businesses – these innumerable challenges require us to treat our endemic illness: the deficit,” stated the prime minister. “The more we are indebted, the more the debt costs, and the more it suffocates the country.”

This is France’s fourth government in a year, with no party having a parliamentary majority. The new Cabinet relies on support from lawmakers on the center-right and center-left. Le Pen, Macron’s main rival, was instrumental in ousting the previous government by joining left-wing forces in a no-confidence vote. Bayrou consulted with Le Pen when forming the new government, and she remains a powerful force.

Left-wing groups are outraged, claiming that proposed spending cuts will disproportionately harm working-class families and small companies. Left-wing supporters, meanwhile, feel deceived because a left-wing coalition won the most seats in the summer’s snap legislative elections but was unable to form a government.

A new no-confidence vote is possible, although it is unclear how many parties will support it. Macron has consistently stated that he will remain president until his tenure finishes in 2027.

However, France’s constitution and current structure, known as the Fifth Republic, were drafted in 1958 to maintain stability following a period of turbulence. If this new government fails within months and the country stays in political paralysis, pressure will increase on Macron to resign and demand early elections. Le Pen’s surging National Rally is determined to bring Macron down. But Le Pen has her own problems: a March court verdict on alleged unlawful party finance could prevent her from running for parliament.

Le Pen’s surging National Rally is determined to bring Macron down. But Le Pen has her own problems: a March court verdict on alleged unlawful party finance could prevent her from running for parliament. The National Rally and hard-right Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau want stricter immigration policies. However, Bayrou prefers to focus on making established regulations work. “Many (immigration) laws exist. In response to conservative criticism, he stated Monday on BFM-TV that none is being applied.

Military funding is a crucial issue amid concerns about European security and pressure from US President-elect Donald Trump to increase Europe’s defense spending. French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu, who advocates for military aid to Ukraine and increased weapon manufacture, was retained and emphasized in a statement Tuesday the importance of confronting ”accumulating threats to France. More urgently, Macron wants an emergency decree passed in early January to speed up the rehabilitation of the cyclone-ravaged French colony of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean off Africa. Thousands of people remain in emergency shelters, and authorities are still counting the dead more than a week after the disaster. Meanwhile, the administration in the restive French South Pacific colony of New Caledonia dissolved on Tuesday in a wave of resignations by pro-independence figures – another challenge for the new overseas affairs minister, Manuel Valls, and the incoming Cabinet.