France Is Being Held Hostage

 

Opinion

Guest Essay

France Is Being Held Hostage

Dec. 5, 2024, 1:00 a.m. ET

Credit...Christian Hartmann/Reuters

By Marlon Ettinger

Mr. Ettinger, a journalist who covers French politics, wrote from Paris.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/05/opinion/france-marine-le-pen.html

 

France’s government has fallen.

 

In dramatic scenes at the National Assembly on Wednesday, the government — led by Prime Minister Michel Barnier — lost a no-confidence vote, effectively ending it. Not since 1962 has a French government been forced out this way.

 

The collapse capped a frenzied few days in French politics. Last weekend there were signs that the government’s budget, which included around $60 billion of tax increases and spending cuts, wouldn’t pass in Parliament. That was despite Mr. Barnier, whose minority administration relied on votes from other parties, making several concessions to Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally.

 

He removed a tax hike on electricity bills, cut medical aid for undocumented migrants and redoubled a commitment to pass an even more restrictive immigration bill. On Monday, the government offered a desperate final concession, scrapping an increase on patient contributions for prescriptions.

 

It wasn’t enough. When it became clear that Mr. Barnier wouldn’t have the numbers to pass the budget bill, he chose to push it through without a vote, opening him to the prospect of a no-confidence motion. Ms. Le Pen soon confirmed she would vote against the government, along with the coalition of left-wing parties known as the New Popular Front. The result was foretold. The government, just three months after its formation, was no more.

 

Nobody knows what comes next. What’s certain, however, is the strength and power of the far right in France today. Its ambitions and aspirations already dominate the country; now it’s shown it can take down a government. France is being held hostage, with no end in sight.

 

This crisis has been coming. Since President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call a snap summer election, from which no political group emerged with a majority, the situation has been unstable. Initially, with Parliament divided into three almost equal blocs, Mr. Macron played for time. The New Popular Front, which won the most seats but was far short of a majority, demanded he choose a candidate from their camp to be prime minister. Instead, Mr. Macron looked right — to Mr. Barnier, a longtime conservative politician. In September, he was announced as prime minister.

 

From the outset, Mr. Barnier’s administration depended on the support of the National Rally, which won the most votes in the summer. Ms. Le Pen’s party reveled in it. Jordan Bardella, the party’s candidate for prime minister, said that Mr. Barnier would be under “surveillance.” Privately, some on the far right were optimistic about Mr. Barnier’s appointment. They pointed to his promises in the 2021 presidential primary for the Republicans, including a three-to-five-year moratorium on immigration, as evidence of his ideological compatibility. His choice of a hard-line interior minister was further encouragement.

 

In the event, the National Rally worked with the government more to block legislation than to advance it. They voted together to defeat a budget heavily amended by the left that included tens of billions of dollars of taxes on the rich. But the relationship was far from perfect. Hanane Mansouri, a right-wing politician who allied with the National Rally in the summer elections, told me that there was hardly any contact between the government and the National Rally and its allies. Mr. Barnier didn’t treat the far-right groups with the legitimacy they deserved. “It would have been useful to discuss things with us,” she said.

 

The budget brought tensions to a boil. The National Rally wanted more changes than Mr. Barnier would give them, including a reduction in France’s contribution to the E.U. budget and a raft of spending cuts. But there’s potentially another reason the party decided to topple his government now. In March, Ms. Le Pen might face a ban from political life for five years, the culmination of a case involving charges that she used European Union funds to pay for National Rally staff. That would mean she would be ineligible to run for president in national elections in 2027.

 

By taking down the government, she may hope to force Mr. Macron to resign — setting the stage for a presidential election in which she could stand. In June, he promised that he’d stay in office until the end of his term. But that hasn’t stopped rumors swirling that he might resign to resolve the nation’s political impasse. Along with the left-wing party France Unbowed, a chorus of established politicians — Jean-François Copé, Charles de Courson and Hervé Morin among them — have been calling for his resignation. In a survey last week, 62 percent of French people said Mr. Macron should resign if the government falls.

 

It would be a remarkable response. Yet it’s true that Mr. Macron’s options are limited. Constitutionally barred from holding another parliamentary election until next summer, he could attempt to cobble together a new government — though both left and right are now sworn to reject prime minister candidates not from their flock. Alternatively, a caretaker government could stagger on until the summer, carrying out the most limited functions of the state. For France, dogged by serious financial problems and never far from social unrest, the lack of a proper government could be disastrous.

 

Mr. Macron’s authority, whatever he does next, is severely diminished. As for Ms. Le Pen and her allies, they are clearly no longer content just to push French political life to the right: Now they want power. It might not be too long before they get it.

 

Marlon Ettinger (@MarlonEttinger) is a journalist based in Paris and the co-host of “Flep24,” a podcast about French politics.