French President Emmanuel Macron vows to name a new prime minister in the coming days to prevent France from sliding deeper into political turmoil, rejecting growing pressure from the opposition to resign.

Macron adopts a defiant tone in an address to the nation, seeking to limit an escalating political crisis after Prime Minister Michel Barnier's government was ousted in a historic no-confidence vote.

Contemporary France's shortest-serving premier, Barnier resigned after Wednesday's parliamentary defeat in a standoff over the budget forced his government to step down, the first such toppling of a French administration in over 60 years.

Macron now faces the task for the third time this year of selecting a new prime minister and does not come up with a name in his address.

"I will appoint a prime minister in the coming days," he says, adding this person will be charged with forming a "government of general interest" with a priority of passing a budget.

He also lashes out at the French far right and hard left for uniting in an "anti-republican front" to bring down the government.

He said lawmakers had "knowingly" chosen "to topple the budget and the government just days before the Christmas holidays."

The French presidency said earlier that Barnier and his ministers would remain "in charge of daily business until the appointment of a new government."

A majority of lawmakers on Wednesday supported the no-confidence vote proposed by the hard left and backed by the far right headed by Marine Le Pen.

New legislative elections cannot be called until a year after the previous ones in summer 2024.

But while Macron has more than two years of his presidential term left, some opponents are calling on him to resign to break the deadlock.

According to a poll by Odoxa-Backbone Consulting for Le Figaro daily, 59 percent of French want the president to step down, while a survey by Harris for RTL put the figure even higher, at 64 percent.

Bur Macron said: "The mandate that you gave to me democratically (in 2022 elections) is a five-year mandate and I will exercise it fully, right up to the end."

"The 30 months we have ahead of us must be 30 months of useful action for the country."

Hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon said that Macron was the "cause of the problem" in France "and would go due to the force of events" before his term ends.

Barnier is Macron's fifth prime minister since coming to power in 2017. Each successive premier has served for a shorter period and, given the composition of the National Assembly, there is no guarantee that Barnier's successor would last any longer.

Loyalist Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu and Macron's centrist ally Francois Bayrou have been touted as possible contenders, as has former Socialist premier and interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve.