With threats mounting inside and outside the EU’s borders and Germany in paralysis, the last thing Europe needed was fresh upheaval besetting its other big power. Yet that is exactly what France is facing with a no-confidence vote expected today that could bring down the government.
The shaky minority administration assembled by Prime Minister Michel Barnier only three months ago began to wobble badly on Monday after he triggered an extraordinary constitutional mechanism to force through an austerity budget.
For Barnier to survive, the far-right opposition leader Marine Le Pen and her National Rally deputies would have to abstain in today’s vote on a motion of no-confidence tabled by leftwing parties. But Le Pen has said that she is ready to help the left to boot out Barnier.
The austerity budget, which includes deeply unpopular social security reforms, is meant to rein in France’s spiralling national deficit, which is dramatically above permitted eurozone levels. This explainer has a useful recap of what is at stake for the European economy.
There are fears of turbulence in the financial markets if the budget is rejected and the government toppled as a consequence. Some of the scenarios are outlined here: a caretaker premier could be appointed, but no new parliamentary elections can legally take place for months.
The crisis is essentially political, however – the result of a mess created mostly by President Macron, after Le Pen’s National Rally came first in European elections last May. To everyone’s astonishment, Macron dissolved parliament and called snap elections that kept the far right out of power but produced a stalemate in the national assembly. Macron’s centrists were beaten by a leftwing coalition, the NPF, and the president reduced to the status of lame duck.
Paul Taylor, an analyst with the European Policy Centre, warned in a prescient Guardian column in September that by defiantly appointing a conservative to head a minority government, rather than a candidate from the moderate left, Macron was placing his own – and France’s – fate in Le Pen’s hands. She would become a kingmaker with the power to pull the plug on Barnier whenever she wanted.
Sure enough, to avoid being voted out by the left, Barnier has repeatedly had to meet the National Rally’s demands, boosting Le Pen’s standing with voters in the process. “Barnier may still believe he can call Le Pen’s bluff and prevent a censure motion from passing, but I don’t see how he gets the numbers,” Paul says. “Either way, he already looks weak and desperately dependent. He has granted Le Pen more legitimacy by offering policy climbdowns. And each new budget concession makes Le Pen look more like a Robin Hood, stealing back money for pensioners, for sick people and for householders. All of which could further broaden her electoral base.”
Could this crisis lead to Macron’s departure and an early presidential election? The president has repeatedly ruled out resigning, insisting he will remain at the Elysée until his term ends in 2027, come what may.
But Paul senses a shift in the far-right leader’s calculations: “Le Pen seems to have escalated the crisis since prosecutors demanded a jail sentence and a five-year public office ban in her embezzlement trial. That would in effect bar her from running in the next presidential election in 2027. She may have decided to try to force Macron out before the court hands down its sentence on 31 March, and bring forward the presidential vote. It’s a long shot, but the public mood is angry and frustrated.”
In any case, he adds, none of this makes France look like the strong leader of Europe that Macron has long sought to position it as.
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“It makes France look like the sick man of Europe due to a combination of political paralysis, social unrest and fiscal incontinence, with no early cure in sight.”
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