• Opposition unites to topple Bayrou’s minority govt.
• Francois Bayrou to address Assembly before voting.
• Macron calls on parties to demonstrate “responsibility”.

France’s parliament is expected to oust Prime Minister Francois Bayrou on Monday after just nine months in office, plunging the key EU member into new political uncertainty and creating a painful dilemma for President Emmanuel Macron.

Bayrou blindsided even his allies by calling a confidence vote to end a months-long standoff over his austerity budget, which foresees almost 44 billion euros ($52 billion) of cost savings to reduce France´s debt pile.

Opposition parties across the board have made it clear they will vote against his minority government, making it highly improbable he will get enough backing to survive — he needs a majority of the 577 MPs in the National Assembly.

Bayrou will become the second French prime minister in succession to have suffered such a fate after Michel Barnier was ejected in December after only three months in office.

Bayrou, the sixth prime minister under Macron since 2017, has given no indication in days of TV interviews that he expects to survive the vote.

Instead, he has asked: “Has our country understood the seriousness of the situation it finds itself in?”

He is expected to address parliament in a final bid for support from 1300 GMT with the vote awaited from 1700 GMT.

Poor polls

After the vote, Macron will face one of the most critical decisions of his presidency: appointing the seventh prime minister of his mandate to thrash out a compromise, or call snap elections in a bid to have a more accommodating parliament.

The president is spearheading European efforts to end Russia´s war on Ukraine, boosting his international profile.

But polling at home does not make pretty reading, and he is forbidden from standing a third time in 2027.

According to a poll by Odoxa-Backbone for Le Figaro newspaper, 64% of French want Macron to resign rather than name a new prime minister, a move he has explicitly ruled out.

Some 77% of people do not approve of his work, Macron’s worst-ever such rating, according to an Ifop poll for the Ouest-France daily.

Addressing the crisis after an international summit on Ukraine, Macron called on French political forces on Thursday to demonstrate “responsibility” and ensure “stability”.

“The reshaping of the world is changing many things for our Europe. In this context, France must continue to move forward,” he said.

But alongside political upheavals, France is also facing social tension.

A left-wing collective calling itself “Block Everything” is calling for a day of action on September 10 and trade unions have urged workers to strike on September 18.

Sleeping giant

There is no guarantee an election would result in any improvement in the fortunes of Macron’s centre-right bloc in parliament.

But there are signs that the president could be eyeing cooperation with the Socialist Party (PS), a one time giant of French politics that has fallen into the doldrums in recent years.

At a meeting on Tuesday of the centrist parties that support him, Macron urged them to “work with the Socialists”, a participant said, asking not to be named. All those present were opposed to snap elections, the person added.

Socialist leader Olivier Faure has made no secret of his readiness to take the post of prime minister, even producing his own draft budget.

But Socialist backing would not automatically attract support from other left-wing forces.

“It would be workable if the Socialist Party says: ‘We’re overthrowing the alliance and governing with the central bloc,'” said a close associate of Macron, adding that for now the president is keeping his cards close to his chest.

• Shortage of female doctors hampers women’s access to care.
• Restrictions force pregnant women, trauma victims into crisis.
• Thousands of women left injured, homeless by earthquakes.

ISLAMABAD: The World Health Organisation (WHO) has asked Taliban authorities to lift restrictions on Afghan female aid workers, allowing them to travel without male guardians and help women struggling to access care after a powerful earthquake killed 2,200 people in eastern Afghanistan.

“A very big issue now is the increasing paucity of female staff in these places,” Dr Mukta Sharma, the deputy representative of WHO’s Afghanistan office, told Reuters.

She estimated around 90% of medical staff in the area were male, and the remaining 10% were often midwives and nurses, rather than doctors, who could treat severe wounds. This was hampering care as women were uncomfortable or afraid to interact with male staff and travel alone to receive care.

The September 1 magnitude-6 quake and its aftershocks injured more than 3,600 people and left thousands homeless in a country already dealing with severe aid cuts and a slew of humanitarian crises since the Taliban took over in 2021 as foreign forces left.

The Afghan health ministry and a spokesperson for the Taliban administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Taliban have previously said they would ensure women could receive aid.

Its administration in 2022 ordered Afghan female NGO staff to stop working outside the home. Humanitarian officials say there have been exemptions, particularly in the health and education sectors, but many said these were patchwork and not sufficient to allow a surge of female staff, particularly in an emergency situation that required travel.

That meant aid organisations and female staff faced uncertainty, Sharma said, and in some cases were not able to take the risk.

“The restrictions are huge, the mahram (male guardian requirements) issue continues and no formal exemption has been provided by the de facto authorities,” she said, adding her team had raised the issue with authorities last week.

“That’s why we felt we had to advocate with (authorities) to say, this is the time you really need to have more female health workers present, let us bring them in, and let us search from other places where they’re available.”

Sharma said she was extremely concerned about women in the future being able to access mental health care to deal with trauma as well as for those whose male family members had been killed, leaving them to navigate restrictions on women without a male guardian.

Peer Gul from Somai district in Kunar province, which was severely hit by the quakes, said many women from his village had experienced trauma and high blood pressure after the earthquake and were struggling to reach medical care.

“There is no female doctor for examinations; only one male doctor is available,” he said.

Sharma noted the growing shortage of Afghan female doctors as the Taliban have barred female students from high school and university, meaning a pipeline of women doctors was not being replenished.

The UN estimates around 11,600 pregnant women were also impacted by the quakes in a country with some of the highest maternal mortality rates in Asia.

Funding cuts, including by the US administration this year, had already left the health system reeling. Around 80 health facilities had already closed in the affected areas this year due to US aid cuts and another 16 health posts had to be shuttered due to damage from the earthquake, Sharma said.

• Survivors camp outdoors fearing aftershocks, lack tents.
• More than 2,200 dead, helicopters delivered aid.
• Children face trauma, disease risks.

Haunted by the fear that aftershocks could bring rocks crashing down from the mountains, the survivors of Afghan earthquakes vowed not to return to destroyed villages but camp in fields and on riverbanks instead, even without tents to keep off the rain.

“We have no shelter, not even a tent,” said 67-year-old farmer Adam Khan, leaning on a stick outside his ruined home in the village of Masud in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Kunar, devastated last week by earthquakes and subsequent aftershocks.

“It rained last night, we had no place to take cover,” he added. “Our biggest fear is the big rocks that could come down at any moment.”

Two earthquakes on September 1 killed more than 2,200 people and injured over 3,600 across the region, flattening thousands of homes, while aftershocks brought fresh landslides, leaving families trapped between unstable mountains and swollen rivers.

Aid groups sped in food and supplies by helicopter, but survivors say help is patchy and slow.

Afghanistan’s poverty and inadequate infrastructure maroon many villages hours from the nearest road, while most homes, built of mud and stone, crumbled instantly in the tremors.

Families cluster in makeshift camps dotting the area. In the village of Shaheedan, farmer Shams-ur-Rahman, 40, said he lost six relatives and fled with his family of nine. Now they sit in the open beside a road, flanked by their few possessions.

“The tents they gave us cannot even accommodate our children,” he said. “On the way down from the mountain, I had no shoes for my son, so I shared mine with him in turns as we walked down.”

For some, the displacement looks set to be permanent. In the harsh glare of the sun, Gul Ahmad, 51, stood beside his relatives, the women of his family crouched in the shade of a wall as their pop-up tents flapped in the dust nearby.

“Even if there is no earthquake, a simple rainfall could bring rocks crashing down on us,” he said. “We will not go back. The government must provide us with a place.”

Without sufficient shelter, sanitation and food, the trauma will spread disease and poverty in one of the world’s poorest and most quake-prone nations, international aid agencies say.

Some of the worst affected are children. Twelve-year-old Sadiq was pulled out alive after being trapped for 11 hours under rubble, in which his grandmother and a cousin were killed beside him.

“I thought I would die,” he said, sitting quietly on a rope bed as cousins and uncles milled around the family’s shelter. “It felt like doomsday.”