After three months of a Barnier government, it seems that France is back to square one. This week, as predicted, a coalition of the Left allied with Le Pen’s far-Right acted to bring it down. It was not an auspicious tenure: Barnier broke records only for being the shortest-serving Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic and the first since 1962 to fall after a vote of no confidence. It was a moment of high political drama. But après Barnier — what?
Multiple reasons were given by those who voted to bring it down. Marine Le Pen fulminated against his focus on tax rises as the only way to balance the books. The far-Left’s Éric Coquerel denounced the Prime Minister for being both illegitimate and unpopular. The leader of Les Républicains, Laurent Wauquiez, from the same political family as Barnier, accused the Left and the far-Right of putting the interests of their parties ahead of those of the government.
Wauquiez is right that there has been no principled critique of the Barnier Government, and no alternative platform even proposed. Both sides just wanted him gone, having rejected his right to be there in the first place. No doubt Barnier carried some hubris from Brussels to Matignon; but as he has learnt to his cost, governing as French Prime Minister bears little resemblance to the job of an EU envoy.
So with Barnier defenestrated, Macron’s neck is on the line. Given that he is unable to dissolve the National Assembly because the rules state that a year must elapse between dissolutions, he must find a Prime Minister who can hold a government together at least until next June.
Various names have been circulating, some had been sounded out and rejected by Macron over the summer. François Baroin from the centre-right, the Macronist ally François Bayrou. Or Bernard Cazeneuve, a former socialist Prime Minister. Macron needs a moderate; someone who can unify the opposing political blocs at least until they can vote in favour of a much-needed budget. This was why Barnier was picked in the first place: it was believed he had the numbers. Macron and his cronies are now back in the President’s spacious Elysée office, calculator in hand, doing the maths. Crucially, any opposition to a new Prime Minister must not go above the fateful 288, the number of votes needed to win a no-confidence vote in the parliament.
For the fate of the next Prime Minister will depend on this number. Are the political parties prepared to compromise, or do they want to use this crisis to obtain the ultimate prize: the fall of Macron himself? Marine Le Pen and her Rassemblement National (RN) held back from openly calling for Macron’s resignation. However, she did make it clear that he should consider whether “he is in a position to stay or not”. On the Left, the leaders of La France Insoumise (LFI) have made no bones about wanting the President’s departure. This would fix the current impasse in brutal fashion by triggering new presidential and legislative elections.
Both still feel sore about the outcome of the legislative elections in June. Le Pen’s RN felt robbed by the “republican alliance” of parties that was built up to block their route to power. The LFI believed it had won the election and deserved to have its choice of Prime Minister. Both also have beef with Macron: Le Pen was beaten by him twice in the second-round run-off of the presidential elections, and in the first of these run-offs he humiliated her publicly on television. The LFI was radicalised by him and has directed much of its ire against the top-down manner in which Macron has governed.
This anti-Macron sentiment has become a material force in French politics ever since the social and political crisis of the Gilets Jaunes. This echoes into France herself: deep dissatisfaction with the status quo was expressed in the surprisingly high rates of public support for bringing down Barnier; even with the prospect of jittery financial markets, just under half of those asked wanted him to go.
Meanwhile, Macron clings on. And some of the other parties see an opportunity amid the chaos. The Socialists are clear about wanting power. An alliance with Macron could propel them once again into frontline politics: a welcome change given they have been in the wilderness since 2017. This would also help them escape the clutches of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-Left.
Their desire for power may finally deliver the death blow to the New Popular Front, the anti-Le Pen alliance. A moderate figure from the centre-left could win the support of the PS, the Greens, Macron’s party, and perhaps even the centre-right, in the manner of a grand coalition that excludes the two extremes of the LFI and the RN. If this were the case, many within the PS would want to accept it. The centre-right Les Républicains also want power, and have, over the past three months, tasted it and no doubt would wish to hold onto it. But would they be willing to share?
The trouble here is that there is no tradition of compromise and coalition-building within the National Assembly. At the same time, the fragmentation of the party system into a five-way split means that any pro-government majority is fragile at best.
Given the current parliamentary arithmetic, the RN and LFI cannot dissolve a government alone. And so the break-up of the New Popular Front, if it resulted in an agreement between the Socialists, the Greens, Macron’s party and the centre-right, might actually lead to a new prime minister and some stability. But that sort of cooperation is difficult to imagine if the parties have no sense of loyalty or obligation to the President. Why work so hard to overcome divisions if the ultimate purpose is to save Macron’s skin?
Macron has since retreated from frontline politics and his critics have let loose. He has been mocked for insisting that, at formal dinners, he is always served first, and for referring to the French, when he first arrived at the Elysée, as “my people”. Bitter at how things have gone sour, the French first lady says to her entourage: “The French do not deserve him.”
And so France moves slowly towards a situation where no one can govern, and where the goal of its bickering parties is not to exercise power but rather to bring down President Macron. This scenario had seemed unlikely a few months ago, but now, after the fall of the Barnier government, which almost half the French see as Macron’s fault, it is no longer such an outlandish idea. And the current drama is just the first act in a much wider crisis.
Disclaimer
Some of the posts we share are controversial and we do not necessarily agree with them in the whole extend. Sometimes we agree with the content or part of it but we do not agree with the narration or language. Nevertheless we find them somehow interesting, valuable and/or informative or we share them, because we strongly believe in freedom of speech, free press and journalism. We strongly encourage you to have a critical approach to all the content, do your own research and analysis to build your own opinion.
We would be glad to have your feedback.
Source: UnHerd Read the original article here: https://unherd.com/