Some had thought that he might last a bit longer, but the French government of prime minister Michel Barnier, appointed back in September, was never a long-term prospect. So it was no surprise this week when opposition to his budget from both left and far right translated into a no-confidence motion that on Wednesday was carried comfortably, 331 votes to 243.
As you’ve probably heard from the media coverage, that makes him the shortest-serving prime minister in France’s Fifth Republic, and the first to fall on a vote of no-confidence since 1962. But the situation then was importantly different: president de Gaulle immediately dissolved parliament for an election, which his supporters won. Emmanuel Macron has already tried dissolution once, last June, and cannot do it again within twelve months; he is stuck with the existing parliament until mid-2025.
What you might not have got from the media is a clear account of the parliamentary numbers that underlie Macron’s problem. It might look complex, with eleven official groups plus a few ungrouped MPs, but a six-way division will make the point:
- Far left (Unsubmissive France, or LFI): 71
- Centre-left (Socialists, Greens and Communists): 121
- Centre (Macronists, MoDem and Horizons): 163
- Centre-right: 47
- Far right (National Rally and UDR): 141
- Others: 31, plus three seats currently vacant
From there, simple arithmetic will tell you that the three largest tendencies (centre-left, centre and far right) are the only ones that matter. Any two of them together will either have a majority or be so close to it as to be able to prevent anyone else from governing, given the spread of uncommitted MPs.
And on the (sound) assumption that centre-left and far right won’t co-operate, that means that there are only two routes to a majority government, and they both involve the centre. It has to reach some sort of understanding with either the far right or the centre-left. There is no third option.
Barnier’s government represented a tentative version of the first approach, bringing the far right on board, and it is probably best for Macron’s historical reputation that it failed. What he clearly wants, and has done since the election, is an understanding with the centre-left. But the centre-left so far, while not opposed to negotiation with Macron, has held fast to its alliance with the far left – the New Popular Front (NFP) – and both far left and centrists have rejected co-operation with each other.
Macron may now make another attempt in that direction, or he may proceed without a majority, appointing some politically neutral figure as prime minister. But that doesn’t change the arithmetic: in order for any government to survive it will require the tolerance, explicit or not, of either far right of centre-left.
In the meantime, France’s dire budgetary position is likely to deteriorate further. All parties are looking ahead to their position for the 2027 presidential election; putting together a coalition in favor of fiscal responsibility, never easy in France (or in many other places), is going to be more difficult than ever. It will be tempting for Macron to simply toss the ball to the NFP and ask them to form a government, but he has not yet reached that point.
The World is Not Enough 
As far as I could make out after the election from the reports I read, he wanted an arrangement that included part of the centre-left, at the same time as the centre-right (and of course his own centrist bloc between them). More specifically, my recollection is that it was made reasonably clear that the inclusion of the Socialists (or most of them) in a coalition government with the pro-Macron centre was acceptable, but that the invitation did not extend to the Ecologists (Greens) and Communists (as groups, anyway). That doesn’t seem to have changed. It must be significant that Emmanuel Macron (if I correctly understood the current reports I have read) met in person with a Socialist leader and said he would speak later on the phone with representatives of the other components of the New Popular Front (Ecologists, Greens and La France Insoumise). It may be that when you consider the different components of the New Popular Front, you evaluate only La France Insoumise as far-left and the others as centre-left, but It seems that Emmanuel and his supporters have a different (and incompatible) evaluation.
If the Socialists (or most of them) joined with the current government grouping which includes the pro-Presidential centre and the centre-right Republicans, it would produced something close to a majority in the National Assembly; they might get to a majority by attracting a few more individuals from various groups, and even without that their position might be sufficient to avoid any further decisive defeat in the National Assembly–that is, until the next election. But what would happen then? Not the certain result, but the most probable one, is that breaking up the New Popular Front would be damaging not only to all its member parties but also to the larger and more important project of blocking and thwarting the far-right. If what we have been now and the next National Assembly election is a government based on a combination of Emmanuel’s centrists, the Republicans and the Socialists, then what is most likely to happen at that election is that all of them lose support while the far-right gains.
It may be that Emmanuel doesn’t want to shift any further to the left because he doesn’t believe he could bring his own supporters with him if he made the attempt, and if that is his calculation then for all I know he could be right: he’s in a much better position to judge that than I am. But it may also be that he doesn’t want to shift any further to the left because he himself actually likes that possibility less than the possibility of improving the prospects of the far-right. I don’t know whether that’s the way he’s thinking, but I’m sure there are plenty of people who do think that way, because there have been before, so it wouldn’t be surprising if he were one of them.
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