France’s unending crisis

François Bayrou can at least boast that he outlasted his predecessor. Michel Barnier last year survived only 99 days in the prime minister’s job; Bayrou has managed almost nine months. But both fell the same way, with a hostile vote in the National Assembly. Barnier lost 331 to 243; Bayrou on Monday lost 364 to 194.*

There had been some leakage from centre-right and non-aligned MPs in the interim, but the basic alignment was the same. Both lost because far right, far left and centre-left combined against them.

But the anti-government majority is not a potential governing majority. Left and far right will not co-operate in office. There are still only three realistic routes to a majority, for which 289 votes are required:

• centre + centre-right + centre-left (331 votes)
• far right + centre-right + centre (348 votes)
• centre + centre-left + far left (353 votes)

President Emmanuel Macron has consistently pursued the first option, which both Barnier and Bayrou tried to implement. But the centre-left, although it tolerated Bayrou for a time, ultimately refused to come on board. The second option would involve collaboration with the far right, and although Macron at times has made some moves in that direction, there is no evidence that the far right would be content with anything less than a major share of power – and to concede that would be to betray everything that Macron’s career has stood for.

The president may ultimately be driven to the third option, to toss the ball to the left, with a promise that his centrists would back them at least for a time, and see what they can make of it. Olivier Faure, head of the Socialist Party, has indicated his willingness to take the job, and while the far-left LFI is hostile to the idea it seems unlikely that they would try to unseat a Socialist-led government straight away.

The problem, however, is finding a policy response to France’s fiscal crisis that the different parties can agree on. It’s the pressing urgency of that crisis that has prompted Macron to have one more try at sustaining a centrist government: this morning he appointed defence minister Sébastien Lecornu to replace Bayrou, with a brief to somehow persuade MPs of the need to unite to stabilise the country’s finances.

His prospects don’t look good. He has been a successful minister and has a reputation as a good negotiator, but he is a close colleague of the president – unlike Bayrou he has little in the way of his own power base – and the opposition seems determined to humiliate Macron. Neither LFI nor the far right has much interest in fiscal responsibility, and the Socialists, having come tantalisingly close to power, are unlikely to want to compromise now.

In addition to the growing sense of fiscal doom, something else has changed since Barnier’s fall. Then, Macron was stuck with the existing parliament; it could not be dissolved within twelve months of the previous election. But that mark was passed in July. However unattractive it might be, a fresh election is now an option: for now the far right are the only ones demanding it, but at some point Macron may find it a useful threat in his dealings with the other parties.

It’s not at all likely, however, that another election would solve anything. Polls show little change from last year’s result, and provided the republican front that warded off a far-right majority remains intact, much the same players would probably be returned in much the same strengths. All the signs are that the financial irresponsibility of the parties is fully endorsed by their voters.

Nor would the other option commonly suggested, of Macron’s own resignation, be much of a solution – except for the president himself, who would be able to wash his hands of the whole mess. Whoever won would still have to come up with a program and somehow put together a parliamentary majority for it, and that would pose all the same challenges that it has for Macron and his governments.

Dominique Moïsi, an analyst quoted by CNN, put it well:

It sounds as if a regime change is inevitable yet I can’t see how it will come about and who would do the job. We are in a phase of transition between a system that no longer works and a system no one can imagine.

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* Technical note: In Barnier’s case the figure for his supporters is a notional one, since a no-confidence motion requires an absolute majority so only the votes in favor are recorded. Bayrou fell on a confidence vote moved by the government, so votes on both sides are recorded; 15 MPs abstained.