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Local France
12 hours ago
- Politics
- Local France
OPINION: France is a mess, but it's far from the only country floundering
A year ago, France had no government and no obvious means of acquiring one. Enter Michel Barnier in September. Exit Michel Barnier in December. François Bayrou, the fourth Prime Minister in 11 months, took his place. Bayrou's exit seems likely in October or November. This year, at least, we should be spared a summer of politics or politicking. Normal warfare has been suspended until the Autumn. An IFOP opinion poll last weekend found that President Emmanuel Macron's approval rating has fallen to its lowest ever level – 19 percent. Bayrou, who was already the least popular Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic (ie for 67 years), has slumped to 13 percent. It is now less than two years (gulp) before France elects a new President of the Republic. READ ALSO : ANALYSIS: Who's who in France's 2027 presidential election race✎ The democratic health of the country has reached its most disturbing ebb since the 1950s or maybe the 1930s (ignoring the hiatus of 1940-44). The Centre and Centre-right government is exploring unseen depths of unpopularity. The Left is not only divided but its divisions and sub-divisions are divided. Advertisement France's most popular politician, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen, is also one of its most unpopular, with negative ratings in the high 40s. She is, in any case, banned from running for President in 2027 after being found guilty of stealing money from the European Union last March. Her appeal will be heard in the Spring. As things stand, the front-runner for the presidency is her 29-year-old deputy, Jordan Bardella, who proved in last year's parliamentary election to be a pretty (and petty) TikTok politician incapable of defending his own policies without a script. Whoever does enter the Elysée in 22 months' time will inherit a fiscal time-bomb. The unserious reactions to François Bayrou's truth-or-consequences budget plan last week suggest that the French – both politicians and people – are not yet willing to confront the €1.3 trillion consequences of a half-century of state overspending. At the same time, France faces rising unemployment, deep divisions over immigration and the challenges of two forever wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Like the rest of the EU, it is still scrambling to grasp the implications of a second Trump presidency in the US which is anti-democratic, anti-truthful and anti-European. What a mess. And yet the mess is not French alone. The politics of the USA, Britain, Germany, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands and Belgium are equally poisonous and divided. Democracy and truth have gone out of fashion. The old half-truths and approximations which allowed democracy to function have been overwhelmed by outright falsehoods. Political parties have been pushed aside by the cult of personality – from Donald Trump to Nigel Farage to Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Social media and slanted 24-hour TV news channels are partly to blame. The rule of acknowledged fact and widely accepted opinion is over. It is unlikely to return. Young people never read newspapers and seldom consult traditional news sites on line. In other words, the extreme fragility of French politics in 2025 cannot be understood by looking at France alone. It is the result of a coupling of the old and the new, the domestic and the global. Advertisement There is a traditional and permanent French disenchantment with politics – a constant desire for change and a perpetual rejection of all changes. To this has been added the aggressive cynicism of the social media age which sees all mainstream politicians as corrupt and all received wisdom as a conspiracy. This is fertile ground for the Far Right, as shown by the success of Donald Trump and the surge of support for Nigel Farage in the UK. I used to argue that the Far Right could not be elected in France. I am no longer so sure. In France, we are lucky, perhaps, in having ineffectual Far Right leaders. Marine Le Pen is disturbingly likeable if you meet her but she lacks the hallucinatory mass appeal of a Trump. Bardella is good on social media but feeble on TV. France, I fear, would be ripe for plucking by a demagogue with genuine charisma and a more convincingly intellectual manner – a right-wing Mélenchon. Advertisement If not the Far Right, then who in 2027? Who could win by honestly confronting France's weaknesses and reminding France that – despite all – it gets many things right? There is Edouard Philippe, the former PM who hopes to reconcile the Macron centre with what remains of the ex-Gaullist Centre-right. He is a decent man but looks increasingly like a 1990s politician floundering in the 2020s. There is Gabriel Attal, the former PM who is struggling to transition from wonderkid to statesman. He has the impossible task of distancing himself from Macron while promising to rescue Macronism. There is Bruno Retailleau, the hard-line interior minister who wants to resurrect the Centre-right but has nothing to say on any subject but crime and immigration. Could there still be hope for a Relative Unknown, another Macron, from right, left or centre-field? It would take great luck to pull off that trick again but the TikTok Age demands instant celebrity and politics as a form of reality TV. Wanted: a moderate and well-meaning Messiah of moderate Left or Right or Centre who is ready to become, as soon as she or he is elected, the most hated person in France. Does such a person exist? Probably not.
LeMonde
16-07-2025
- Business
- LeMonde
Former French PM Michel Barnier announces run for Parliament in by-election
Former French prime minister Michel Barnier announced on Tuesday, July 15, that he would run for Parliament in an upcoming special election in Paris. The outgoing centrist MP, Jean Laussucq, was removed from office by the Constitutional Council on Friday. "At this very serious moment for our country (...), I have decided to put forward my candidacy in the special election for Paris's second constituency," Barnier wrote on X, emphasizing that his candidacy would be "part of an effort to unite the right and the center." Paris's second constituency runs along the left bank of the Seine, stretching from the Luxembourg Gardens to the Eiffel Tower. Barnier, a member of the conservative Les Républicains, served as prime minister from September to December 2024. He was replaced by François Bayrou after losing a vote of no confidence over the 2025 budget. LR President Bruno Retailleau hailed Barnier's candidacy, describing it as "a triple opportunity: for Paris, for LR, and for France." Personal bank account The Constitutional Council on Friday annulled Lassucq's 2024 election for having paid "campaign expenses using his personal bank account" and for allowing third parties to "directly pay a significant portion of the expenses incurred for his election campaign." The Council removed him from office and banned him from running for elections for one year. Barnier's candidacy could allow LR to take another seat from Macron's Renaissance party. Since LR joined the government coalition, it has won two special elections, also clinching one seat previously held by the far-right Rassemblement National.
Local France
16-07-2025
- Business
- Local France
OPINION: Bayrou's budget has infuriated everyone and may force France into fresh elections
A freeze on all public spending, except on defence; no inflation-linked rise in pensions or welfare payments; a tax on the super wealthy; and - just to make sure the whole country was furious - the abolition of two public holidays . This was an ambitious programme for a powerful prime minister with a large parliamentary majority and several years to impose his will before the next election. Bayrou is the most unpopular Prime Minister for 60 years. He heads a quarrelsome coalition with a minority of seats in the National Assembly. His chances of surviving the Autumn as France's fourth prime minister in 20 months are small – and smaller after Tuesday's speech. What was he trying to achieve? To end his 40-year career in French politics guns-blazing as the man who was right but ignored? Advertisement Bayrou's office rejects that interpretation. They say Tuesday's speech was aimed over the heads of politicians at an 'ordinary France' which understands that a proud, independent country can no longer afford to add to its Himalaya of €3.3 trillion of public debt. The Prime Minister believes, they say, that the predictable rejection of his plan by oppositions of both Left and Far Right was just the beginning of a long negotiation. Bayrou plans to take no summer holiday. He believes that public opinion will come to his rescue. His maximalist plan to cut the 2026 budget by €43.8 billion can be sold in amended form, he believes, to the Socialists if not the Far Right. The abolition of Easter Monday and May 8th as public holidays was intended to concentrate minds but fall away in the final negotiation. This is the theory. There were no clear statements of support from the parties of the minority Centre and Centre-right coalition, other than Bayrou's own Modem. This is the Prime Minister's strategy alone. His days are probably numbered and two numbers will decide his fate. The first number is €43.8 billion. The Prime Minister is right to say that France needs to cut a large chunk from its deficit next year. But how can he or any other Prime Minister hope to correct 50 years of profligacy with no majority in the National Assembly? The second number is 289. How can Bayrou avoid a censure motion in the Assembly in the autumn – 289 votes out of 577 are needed – when the mutually-detesting opposition groups of Left and Far Right seem determined to bring him down? Bayrou's predecessor Michel Barnier survived only three months before he was toppled by his attempts to pass a deficit-cutting budget for 2025. Bayrou's career as PM will almost certainly be terminated by his attempts to pass a budget for 2026. What will President Emmanuel Macron do then? He could call a new parliamentary election but that would solve little. He is more likely, I believe, to appoint a new Prime Minister – the fifth in less than two years – to try to pick a new way through the parliamentary-budgetary morass. Advertisement Only if that fails will Macron feel obliged to call a new legislative election late this year or in the spring (disrupting the important, municipal elections due in March). None of the main players - whatever they may say - wants a new national election before the Presidential poll of April-May 2027. President Macron was badly burned politically by his calamitous decision to hold a snap election last June and July. He thought he was going to be forced into an election within a couple of months anyway by the manoeuvres of the centre-right group in the National Assembly. He recovered his power to dissolve the assembly last week after a constitution-imposed 12 months delay. He will be very reluctant to use that power again but may eventually have little choice. The Left does not want a new election, whatever they may say. It would be difficult for them to reassemble their successful electoral alliance, the New Popular Front. They would risk losing many of the seats that they won last year. Both Jean-Luc Mélenchon's hard left La France Insoumise and the divided Socialists would rather concentrate on the local elections of 2026 and presidential elections of 2027. Advertisement So why risk an election by censuring Bayrou and whoever succeeds him? The hard left is addicted to censure motions and its extreme anti-Macron rhetoric. Compromise is not in their nature. The Socialists made a temporary deal with Bayrou to allow the 2025 budget to pass in February. Bayrou believes that he can appeal to their patriotism and good sense. The more radical wing of the party won its leadership election last month. They are not in the mood to rescue Bayrou - and face up to France's profound budgetary problems – again. Marine Le Pen's Far Right might do well in a new election. She does not want one all the same. She would be banned from running again for her seat in Hénin-Beaumont near Lille after her five-year suspension from electoral office for embezzling EU funds last March. She would rather wait for the outcome of her appeal next summer. A parliamentary election before then might tilt the balance of power within the Rassemblement National towards her Number Two, Jordan Bardella. So why would Le Pen risk an election by censuring Bayrou and whoever succeeds him? She has painted herself into a corner. She has rejected in advance almost all workable means of cutting France's budget deficit. She wants no freeze in pensions or social spending; no tax rises; no cuts which effect the middle classes. Her parliamentary party and electoral base would be furious if she crossed these red lines. In sum, no one wants a new parliamentary election so close to 2027. Not the politicians. Not the electors. We may sleep-walk into one all the same. To solve a budgetary problem which is a half-century in the making needs either a courageous government with a parliamentary majority or an opposition ready to negotiate on the deficit in good faith. France has neither.
Local France
15-07-2025
- Business
- Local France
French prime minister calls for scrapping of two public holidays in austerity budget
The PM on Tuesday afternoon gave a press conference outlining his plans to get a grip on the country's public spending. Among other measures he called on the French to "work more" and suggested abolishing two of France's 11 annual public holidays (or 13 for people who live in the historic Alsace Lorraine region). He called on the "whole nation to work more" and said he would be suggesting the abolition of two jours fériés - as examples, he cited May 8th (VE Day) and Easter Monday, but insisted "these are proposals". According to a Senate report published last September, cancelling one public holiday would generate €2.4 billion a year. Advertisement At present France has 11 public holidays a year ranging from the secular such as the July 14th Fête nationale and VE Day to the historic Catholic holidays like Ascension and Assumption. Those living in the Alsace Lorraine area get two extra holidays - St Stephens Day on December 26th and Good Friday (the Friday before Easter) - for historic reasons relating to their change in ownership between France and Germany. The most recent public holiday to be scrapped was Pentecost - which was axed as an official ' jour férié ' in 2005 but now has an ambiguous status in which some workers get the day off and others don't. The idea of scrapping a holiday in order to save money was considered but rejected by Bayrou's predecessor Michel Barnier. Bayrou was presenting the outline of his plan to save €40 billion - the debates on the Budget will then begin in parliament in the autumn with the state spending plan normally passed before the parliamentary session ends for Christmas. The public holiday changes would be part of the full Budget presented to parliament for debate. However MPs could bring down another government if enough of them vote instead for a motion of no-confidence in Bayrou over the spending plans.
CNBC
08-07-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Watch CNBC's full interview with Michel Barnier
Former French prime minister and EU commissioner Michel Barnier discusses French fiscal policy, the state of France's politics, EU-U.S. trade negotiations, EU-China relations, and more from Les Rencontres Economiques in Aix-en-Provence.
