Valls' Socialists survive vote
February 19, 2015
Detractors of Valls' pro-business policy, mainly opposition conservatives, but also rebels within the Socialist party, failed on Thursday to muster enough votes to topple the government.
Some 234 lawmakers backed the no-confidence motion, short of the 289 votes required in France's lower house of parliament.
Valls had forced through the bill authored by Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday without a direct parliamentary vote by invoking rarely used decree powers. That prompted Thursday's opposition censure motion.
The bill frees up labor rules and includes diverse measures, including those making it easier for employers to lay off workers, to foster competition among professionals such as auctioneers and notaries, and to extend store opening hours into evenings and Sundays.
Inflation turns negative
Statistics released Thursday show that inflation in France had turned negative last month for the first time since October 2009, with prices falling 0.4 percent from a year earlier.
A no-confidence vote has only succeeded once in France's 57-year-old Fifth Republic. That was in 1962, when it was used to oust the government of Georges Pompidou.
ipj/kms (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)