I didn't feel like going through all of the forum looking for a thread that we talked about European politics that aren't the UK... So new thread! Anyways, Macron is in more trouble today. Back in the summer, Macron bypassed Parliament and selected Michel Barnier to be PM instead of the person that was offered up by the Leftist plurality coalition. This was already an unpopular decision. It got even worse when budget negotiations between Macron's centrist party and the Leftist and Rightist coalitions were going nowhere. Ultimately Barnier just said f**k it and forced through an austere budget that neither the Left or Right approved of. Today, France's parliament passed a no confidence vote 331-226 against Barnier, which should remove him from office. This would make Barnier term as PM the shortest in France's history and throws further turmoil into France's and the EU's political atmosphere. https://www.politico.eu/article/france-government-collapse-michel-barnier-emmanuel-macron/
I would imagine they have to pick a new PM first? Barnier has turned in his resignation, but will stay on as a caretaker until a new PM is selected. I would imagine they could continue negotiation, but who knows? https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/04/europe/france-no-confidence-vote-barnier-crisis-intl/index.html
A budget must be voted before january 1st in order to avoid a shut-down. The most likely scenario is that the next government will introduce a "special law" authorizing to conduct identically the previous year's budget. If the Parliament agrees, it will be ok until a 'real' bugdet is voted. If the Parliament says 'no', then it's either a shutdown, or the President uses Article 16 of the Constitution, by which he takes full powers and imposes the budget without going through parliament.
First time a PM has to resign after a non-confidence since Pompidou in... 1962 ... The once extremely stable 5th Republic is now looking like the Italian Republic...
Just to be clear: The use of Article 16 (granting full powers to the President) is extremely hypothetical and improbable. It would precipitate France into an unprecedented regime crisis. It happened once with De Gaulle in 1961 during the Algerian War when the very survival of the Republic was at stake. The current situation, although worrying, is infinitely less serious.
As long as the Leftist coalition holds and Melenchon stays as far away from the levers of power, I suspect that everything will settle down once Macron is no longer President. A lot of the issues in France seem to be because the country is roughly 1/3 Leftists, 1/3 Centrists, and 1/3 Rightists and Macron is pushing away people on the edges of the center-right coalition The Republicans once filled.
Part of the problem is that France has not a real parliamentary system like Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom: the place given to the presidential election is disproportionate here. All the parties and their leaders have only one goal: to prepare for the next presidential election. This freezes and radicalizes positions and prevents any compromise.
Maybe? From an outside viewer prespective, it felt like Le Pen's rise and fall of the Left coincided with Macron's rise. I guess we'll see soon? It doesn't seem like Macron is going to win in 2027 and, if things continue along the current path, he may not last until then.
Yes, Macron helped make it happen, but I suspect it would have happened anyway. I mean the division into three ideological poles - progressive left, liberal center, authoritarian right - is ultimately only a reflection of French society and its developments over the last 30 years or so. It took time for these developments to be reflected in the political landscape, but now it's done, and we're in it for a long time in my opinion. Macron cannot run for a third time in a row, but it doesn't really matter now as he's a dead man walking, and since he'll be replaced by one of his clones Gabriel Attal or Edouard Philippe -both former PMs- who only dream of taking his place. I bet he'll be forced to resign before 2027. He would do it now if he had balls like De Gaulle (who resigned in 1969)... but the 'funny' thing is that I think it wouldn't resolve anything at best, or would make things even worse with Le Pen elected and another ungovernable Assembly...
Or Melenchon, with the same result. Heh. If there is any reason why Macron doesn't resign prior to 2027, i think the prospect of a Le Pen or Melenchon presidency would be it.
I think Le Pen has way more chances of being elected than Mélenchon who basically has no reserves of votes outside of the Left. Many centre-right (Macron voters)/right ('Les Républicains' voters) would rather have Le Pen than Mélenchon as a President, because Le Pen -despite all his rhetorics- is pro-business and because they prefer excessive order to disorder... A second round of Le Pen - Melenchon would in fact leave very little chance to the latter. In fact I do not see any configurations in which Mélenchon would be able to win the presidential election. The Left is doomed until they remove him and put a more consensual figure in his place. I agree. The other reason is his massive ego. He is obsessed by the trace he will leave in history. He doesn't want to be remembered as the President whose forced resignation was followed by the rise to power of the extreme right.
Michel Barnier on the left, Georges Pompidou on the right: the two unique cases of prime ministers forced to resign... 62 years apart... Pompidou became President of the Republic a few years later, however. Michel Barnier will simply have the right to a well-deserved retirement.
Yeah, this doesn’t seem like a failure of Barnier’s doing. I’m not certain who could possibly be successful. Kinda like in the US Speaker of the House debacle, you’ll probably end up with some no-name nobody to stumble through these tenuous times.