Short French Politics Update

A few quick thoughts on the developing French political situation (I published a longish article on it Monday, focusing on President Macron, but things are moving fast!).

Emmanuel Macron has now named the centrist politician François Bayrou as Prime Minister, succeeding Michel Barnier, whose government fell to a no-confidence vote last week. At 73, Bayrou is an old warhorse in French politics. He first held ministerial rank thirty-one years ago and has run unsuccessfully for President three times. He comes from near Pau, in the southwestern region of Béarn, and identifies (very) deeply with its most famous native son, King Henri IV (reigned 1589-1610), whose biography he has written. In his first statement on taking office, Bayrou compared himself to Henri and noted that while France may be in crisis today, it is nothing compared to what the first Bourbon monarch faced when he took the throne, with civil war raging, foreign armies on French soil, and his immediate predecessor Henri III assassinated.

True enough! Still, Bayrou is the fourth Prime Minister of the year, which is a first for the Fifth Republic (it was common enough in the Third), and he has a profoundly unenviable task in front of him. France faces a deep budget crisis, decades in the making, which he has promised to address. But if he tries to do so by making sharp cuts in the social security net, he will almost certainly face another no-confidence vote, and probably lose it. His predecessor Barnier fell when the far-right National Rally combined with the New Popular Front alliance of the left for the no-confidence vote. For the moment, the Rally has said it will refrain from repeating the maneuver with Bayrou. But overly austere austerity moves on Bayrou’s part will push them to change tack. He is almost certainly hoping to win support from the Socialist Party, perhaps even detach part of it from the New Popular Front. But whether he can do so, and whether he would gain enough votes to defeat another no-confidence motion, is doubtful. So he is going to have to successfully navigate a very wobbly tightrope if he is to beat Barnier’s record of just three months in office.

And while the opposition parties might attract opprobrium for toppling the government again, they also have an obvious incentive to do so—it might force Emmanuel Macron’s resignation as President. For the moment, he has insisted he will serve out his term, which ends in the spring of 2027. But another failed government might make the pressure on him unbearable. If he resigns, another presidential election will take place immediately, and Marine Le Pen, head of the National Rally, might well win. She, incidentally, has a particular incentive to do this, since she faces criminal charges of misusing government funds, and in March might be sentenced to jail and banned from electoral politics for a period of five years.

In short, the excitement (?) continues.