French President Emmanuel Macron is fast running out of options to prevent France from plunging into financial and political chaos following the toppling of the Centre-Right Prime Minister Michel Barnier whom he had appointed only three months ago. It is a poor reflection of his leadership that he has to choose four Prime Ministers in the span of a year to run the government. Macron remains in denial mode refusing to take responsibility for the crisis. He sensed the public mood well when saying “some people are tempted to blame me for this situation,” and instead held political forces inimical to him responsible for the mess. This has prompted critics to use the two-word expression to slam the President’s diagnosis: “flagrant denial.” Fact remains that France finds itself without a functioning government for the second time in six months as a result of Macron’s disastrous decision to hold snap legislative elections in the summer. Having squandered his relative majority, and handed unprecedented kingmaker status in the Assemblée to Marine Le Pen’s Far-Right MPs, the President is now looking for a fourth Prime Minister in the space of a year. Whoever is chosen, there is no reason to suppose the next one will find it easier than Barnier to control a parliament divided into warring blocs. The markets have already tumbled and there is no budget in place for 2025.
This happened because of Marine Le Pen’s refusal to endorse an austerity budget that targeted pensioners – a constituency crucial to her chances of success in the next presidential election. Macron now has two options: to choose a new PM within days from amongst Centrist or Centre-Right figures which is sure to make him once again vulnerable to manipulations by Marine Le Pen. A more durable and ethical solution would be for Macron to sink his differences with the Leftwing alliance – the New Popular Front (NPF) which narrowly won the July snap polls and prevented Marine Le Pen from emerging as the winner. The NPF alliance includes the Socialist party and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed. He had not chosen a PM from the broad Left fearing that an NPF-led government would attempt to reverse parts of his legacy, including the deeply unpopular plans to raise the retirement age. The decision was not only undemocratic, but it turned the largest parliamentary bloc of MPs against him. It was wrong of Macron to forget that his political career has been built on the back of ‘republican’ votes loaned to him to ward off the threat of a Le Pen presidency. In July, the first Far-Right government in post-war history was only averted by a similar mobilisation and the hasty formation of the NPF alliance. If Macron is to avoid a lame-duck presidency that may even lead to his own humiliating resignation, he needs to recognise that he cannot dictate terms at this stage. Instead of seeking help from Marine Le Pen to bail him out and prop up the next government, it might be prudent for Macron to start building bridges with the Left.
