Haughty defiance has become Emmanuel Macron’s go-to tone during a second term marred by chaos, acrimony and recrimination. During his prime-time television address to the French nation last week, following the toppling of the centre-right prime minister he appointed only three months ago, Mr Macron loftily declined to take responsibility for France’s worst political crisis in decades.
“Some people are tempted to blame me for this situation,” the president acidly observed after accepting Michel Barnier’s resignation. “It’s much more comfortable.” In fact, he suggested, responsibility lay entirely with the political forces who, in delivering the first no-confidence judgment on a government since 1961, had committed an “anti-republican” act of sabotage. The leftwing daily Libération offered a pithy and apt two-word headline riposte to such presidential hauteur: “Flagrant déni” (“In flagrant denial”).
Beyond the blame game, though, what now? As the disastrous consequences of Mr Macron’s decision to hold snap legislative elections in the summer continue to unfold, France finds itself without a functioning government for the second time in six months. Having squandered his relative majority, and handed unprecedented kingmaker status in the Assemblée to Marine Le Pen’s far-right MPs, the president is searching for a fourth prime minister in the space of a year. There is no reason to suppose the next one will find it easier than Mr Barnier to negotiate a parliament divided into three warring blocs. But there can be no fresh elections until July. The markets are spooked, and there is no budget in place for 2025.
Mr Barnier’s fate was sealed by Ms 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. Having pledged to name a new prime minister within days, Mr Macron could opt for another centrist or centre‑right figure, in the hope of better placating her. This arrangement, almost certainly, would also end in tears at a time of Ms Le Pen’s choosing.
A more durable, and ethical, solution would be for Mr Macron to finally demonstrate the humility he should have shown after the chastening outcome of his summer gamble. The July snap poll was narrowly, but indubitably, won by the New Popular Front (NPF) – a leftwing alliance including the Socialist party and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed. Fearing that an NPF-led government would attempt to reverse parts of his legacy, including deeply unpopular plans to raise the retirement age, Mr Macron found reasons not to appoint a prime minister from the broad left.
That decision was undemocratic, self-indulgent and turned the largest parliamentary bloc of MPs implacably against him. It was also deeply anti‑republican. Mr Macron’s 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 postwar history was only averted by a similar mobilisation and the hasty formation of the NPF alliance.
If he is to avoid a lame duck presidency degenerating to the point where his own humiliating resignation becomes unavoidable, the president needs to recognise that election losers don’t get to dictate terms. Instead of cynically looking to Ms Le Pen to prop up the next government, Mr Macron should move from talking the talk when it comes to republican values, to walking the walk.
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