Michel Barnier, the man who circled around the British side during the Brexit negotiations, faces his own imminent departure: as Prime Minister of France.
He will almost certainly lose a vote of no confidence in the French National Assembly today, putting an ignominious end to his three-month term as prime minister, the shortest in the history of the Fifth Republic (established by Charles de Gaulle in 1958) and the first prime minister. overthrown by the French parliament since 1962.
In truth, it’s not clear that anyone could have done it better. Since President Macron, in an unfathomable torrent of blood to his head, called parliamentary elections that he had no need to call in the summer, France has been stumbling in the direction marked “ungovernable.”
Barnier, appointed prime minister by Macron in early September largely because the president could not find anyone else to fill the role, fought valiantly to secure £50bn in spending cuts and tax rises to rein in the growing deficit. French budget. which two years ago was less than five percent of GDP, now exceeds six percent and is heading for an unsustainable seven percent in a couple of years.
But Barnier could not get parliament to back his austerity measures. Since the unnecessary elections, the National Assembly has been dominated by three groups: the hard-right National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen; the hard-left New Popular Front, whose totemic figure is the eternal Corbynista firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon; and what remains of Macron’s centrist supporters.
None are large enough to give any government a majority. An alliance between, say, two of the three is out of the question since they all hate each other too much to cooperate. Macron’s foolish electoral tactics have resulted in nothing but debilitating political gridlock.
Barnier knew it was futile to try to get Parliament to approve the first part of his budget, so he invoked Article 49.3 of the Constitution, which essentially makes it law by decree.
That inevitably triggered a vote of no confidence by the Mélenchon mafia. Barnier’s chicken was cooked when Le Pen said that she had no confidence in him either.
Its likely demise means its budget will also collapse. Macron is already looking for a new prime minister.
Barricades made of metal planks, garbage cans and bonfires were hastily erected in Paris when police responded to protesters in April last year.
A protester fires a tear gas canister during clashes with police during a demonstration in Nantes last year.
Michel Barnier is almost certain to lose a vote of no confidence in the French National Assembly.
The French president has been in the Middle East this week focusing on the need to “reunite the Lebanese people and carry out the reforms necessary for the stability and security of the country.” You probably have a better chance of making it in Lebanon than in France.
The country that Macron now barely presides over is in the midst of a perfect storm: a political, economic and financial crisis, the worst since workers rose up to join students in riots during the infamous events of May 1968, which almost resulted in another French Revolution. . It won’t be long before the French take to the streets again.
The French economy is stagnant, with growth as elusive as it is in Keir Starmer’s Britain, unemployment rising (it’s already 7.4 percent) and the industrial base contracting, with famous French names like Michelin planning closures and layoffs in the new year.
The French stock market is struggling and foreign investors are avoiding a country they until recently considered the top European destination for their capital.
Government spending represents an incredible 57 percent of GDP (compared to 45 percent in the United Kingdom), marking France as more of a socialist than a market economy. The national debt is over 110 per cent of GDP (less than 100 per cent in the UK) and rising, with budget deficits spiraling. Spending on social assistance, including pensions, now represents an unsustainable 25 percent of GDP.
The more France borrows to spend, the more lenders demand higher returns.
For years, France was able to borrow cheaply by taking advantage of Germany’s reputation for fiscal rectitude within the eurozone. Those days are over.
On Monday, the extra interest France has to pay to borrow 10 years versus Germany’s benchmark 10-year bond hit its highest level since 2012. That gap will only widen as markets realize that France is in the grip of a political rigor mortis, which makes deficit reduction or reform impossible.
Capital flight from France, already underway, can only accelerate. Let there be no doubt: as long as the current parliament governs, France is irreformable.
When Macron raised the retirement age for the state pension from 62 to 64, he sparked huge protests for his efforts.
Barnier’s spending cuts included delaying an inflation-linked increase in state pensions. This was, naturally, like a red rag to a bull for Mélenchon et al. But, interestingly, it was also a red line for Le Pen.
What makes reform almost impossible in France today is that the hard right shares the hard left’s love of early retirement, expensive social assistance, and widespread state control.
However, the situation is unsustainable. As France goes deeper into debt to meet welfare demands from left and right, the cost of servicing its debts is soaring: from £44bn this year to an expected £62bn in three years. years.
What happens next is difficult to predict, but it is unlikely to be good. Barnier will remain as interim until Macron chooses a successor.
But any unlucky politician he chooses will have no better chance than Barnier of winning a parliamentary majority.
Macron also cannot call new elections since, constitutionally, he must wait a year from the last time he ventured down that rocky path.
If things get really bad, he could invoke Article 16 of the Constitution, which allows a president in times of crisis to govern without the support of the National Assembly (also known as a dictatorship).
But Macron’s credibility with the French people is so shattered that he has no authority to govern in this way. No doubt, people would take to the streets in large numbers.
France is in a feverish mood. Economic sclerosis, continued layoffs and lengthening unemployment queues will make this even worse.
Macron could always resign. That’s what the majority of French people want him to do (nearly 70 percent in a recent poll) and would trigger new presidential elections. But Macron is unlikely to agree, especially since, as things stand, Le Pen would be his most likely successor.
So Macron is left to stew in his juices while his country stagnates and his culpability for France’s current situation is increasingly recognized. Last year, one of France’s top political scientists described Macron as “an immature, narcissistic, arrogant child, deaf to others and somewhat incompetent.” That is now the national consensus.
De Gaulle created the Fifth Republic 66 years ago to turn France into a presidential democracy because the parliamentary government of the Fourth Republic (1946-58) had proven chaotic, with more than 20 governments in 12 years.
Through an act of arrogant stupidity, Macron – who once saw himself as the very essence of presidential government, and even called himself Jupiter, the most supreme of the Roman gods who sat above the everyday fray – has brought France back to the instability of the Fourth. Republic.
When Barnier was appointed Prime Minister in September, I suggested that he might not last until Christmas. Some thought he was joking.
But it wasn’t: I know my history of the Fourth Republic.
If his successor takes over early next month, he may not last until Easter. France’s crisis will only get worse, under a president who promised a new dawn but left behind a dangerous past of decadence and despair.