Marine Le Pen declares France the 'sick man of Europe' as Macron teeters on the brink

President Macron is a puerile attention-seeker who has turned France into "the sick man of Europe", Marine Le Pen said on Sunday as she called for elections.

The leader of the right-wing populist National Rally denounced the president hours before François Bayrou, Macron's embattled prime minister, was expected to lose a vote of confidence in parliament on Monday, reports The Times.

That would make him the second head of government to be toppled in less than a year after Michel Barnier, the former EU Brexit negotiator, was forced out in December. The news emerges as Russia threatens to 'march on Paris' as all-out WW3 fears erupt.

Bayrou resigned to his fate

With all the opposition parties and even some MPs in his own centre-right alliance set to vote against him, Bayrou appeared resigned to his fate. "There are worse things in life than to be at the head of a government and that the government is overthrown," the 74-year-old centrist told Brut, a news site.

Bayrou's probable departure will leave Macron on the front line of a crisis that critics say is of his own making. His surprise decision last year to call snap parliamentary elections has produced deadlock in the National Assembly and such instability that Alain Duhamel, a respected commentator, said the country was facing not just a bout of political turmoil but a "crisis of regime and a crisis of society".

Socialist PM replacement on cards

Macron's aides have been briefing media outlets that he may replace Bayrou with a Socialist prime minister capable of building an alliance between the left and the centre. Olivier Faure, the Socialist party's first secretary, has said he is "available" for the job.

Such an appointment would involve a reversal of the low-tax, business-friendly agenda pursued by Macron since coming to office in 2017. But in the continued absence of a parliamentary majority, he may be forced to eat humble pie.

Le Pen, 57, who was greeted by cheering supporters in her constituency in northern France on Sunday, said she would try to oust any prime minister who failed to implement Rally policies.

France facing 'anger and despair'

She called instead for new parliamentary elections to break that deadlock that she said was driving voters to "anger and despair" while undermining business confidence and discrediting France on the international stage.

Denouncing Macron and "all those who have served him", she said: "Today, through their fault, France is the sick man of Europe."

Bayrou was right to want to tackle the country's "intolerable" debt burden, but wrong in the solutions he was proposing, she added. Le Pen announced that the Rally would join left-wing parties in voting against him.

She demanded immigration curbs, which she said would save at least €20 billion a year, cuts in France's net annual €7 billion contribution to the EU budget, an "FBI of fraud" to uncover tax and welfare cheats, and an end to "toxic" government programmes, such as investment in renewable energy.

Bardella tipped for top job

Le Pen said the country's economic difficulties were the fruit of the political crisis caused by the "whims of a puerile president in need of attention".

The Rally leader said Jordan Bardella, the party's "pugnacious and determined" 29-year-old chairman, would become prime minister if it won parliamentary elections.

Bardella thought he was going to get the post last year after the Rally came top in the first round of the voting held in June, but fell short when his opponents joined forces in the second round.

After being convicted of corruption last year, Le Pen was barred from running for office and could not herself stand in parliamentary elections.

Unless she overturns the ruling on appeal next year, Le Pen will also be barred from running for the presidency, despite polls putting her in the lead.