Sylvie Goulard, France's nominee for the European Commission, lost the vote on her candidacy on Thursday (10 October), with 82 MEPs against her, 29 in favour, and one abstention.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, now has no choice but to name an alternative.
"We were quite surprised to see that someone as experienced as Sylvie Goulard was not able to take a number of concerns away," Esther de Lange, a Dutch politician from the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), said ...
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Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.