For the first time in more than 60 years, the French parliament has brought down a government. With the Constitution barring new legislative elections before July, and Barnier unavailable to stay on in a caretaker capacity, the president must appoint a new figure to head a caretaker government capable, in the immediate term, of finalising a budget for 2025. Macron says he won’t resign, but even among centrists some are already demanding it, exactly what motivated the no-confidence motions from Le Pen’s and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s parties, analysts say
It is the first time since 1962, when the French parliament brought down Georges Pompidou, that a government has fallen in the wake of a no-confidence motion, and there’s a first major lesson to draw from this collapse, Julien Hoez, editor of The French Dispatch and geopolitics specialist, tells CNN.
“France’s domestic politics is effectively at the mercy of the decision Macron made to call snap elections [following June’s European elections] and the carnage that resulted from that decision,” the French analyst says. “But the reality is that the political instability stems from the behaviour of two extremist parties, France Unbowed (LFI), led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the far left, and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) on the far right.”
Macron, meanwhile, who unlike the prime minister cannot be removed by the National Assembly, promised yesterday that he will “honour with all his energy the trust” placed in him “until the very last second” of his second term, that is, until mid-2027, when the next presidential elections are due. The pledge was made from Saudi Arabia, from where he returned later that day to deal with his country’s institutional crisis, landing in Paris just as MPs were voting on the no-confidence motions.
“Both political leaders, Mélenchon and Le Pen, are actively trying to use the current instability to advance their own political agenda and are hoping to manipulate events to bring down the President himself and force presidential elections while they’re still in positions of strength,” Julien Hoez notes.
“Mélenchon fears the Socialist Party becoming more powerful and overtaking France Unbowed, while Marine Le Pen is trying to avoid the potential five-year ban from political life that could result from the investigation into her party’s misuse of European Parliament funds.”
Even so, and ultimately, the big losers are already clear, the analyst adds. “The ongoing instability could affect support for all the parties involved, there’s a general exasperation starting to creep in even among the most hardened political activists I speak to regularly,” Hoez notes, adding that “some party strategists are doing the maths wrong” about what could happen in the next snap elections.
“Ultimately, though, the biggest loser will be Michel Barnier, who will go down as the shortest-serving prime minister in France’s history, followed by Emmanuel Macron, who will be held responsible for this outcome.”
The uncertainty is almost total. “If a new prime minister is appointed quickly, the current budget could still be adopted before the end of the year,” Julien Hoez notes, but only “if the same situation we saw today, driven by the most extreme wings of Parliament, doesn’t repeat itself.”
All of this adds to the “uncertainty over the European economy, as well as the leadership crisis” the bloc is going through, at one of the darkest moments in modern times for the Franco-German axis. “What’s clear is that all of this further limits the EU’s ability to make the decisions it needs to make in the face of Trump and, more broadly, its ability to confront current challenges, like the loss of competitiveness and growing global insecurity.”
In a month and a half, Trump takes office as US President, and with him comes the renewed threat of a new transatlantic trade war, which further complicates European prospects during this period of enormous instability. “With several active wars, Donald Trump on the horizon, and the urgent need for the EU to find its geopolitical footing, the weakness of two of its main member states comes at the worst possible time, and there are genuine fears that a budgetary catastrophe in France could send shockwaves through the EU,” Julien Hoez notes.
Now that Ursula von der Leyen’s new Commission has just taken office, “we could see some realignments within European institutions if certain MEPs get pulled back to France as potential ministers,” the analyst from The French Dispatch adds. “But ultimately, the functioning of the institutions won’t be seriously affected,” since France is represented on the Council by President Macron, and nothing suggests that will change.
The same applies to the Trump question, who for now appears more focused on “reinforcing his positions towards the US’s immediate neighbours, like Canada and Mexico, and preparing to take on a major fight with Xi Jinping’s China. The EU seems, for now, a secondary concern” for the incoming US president. “But that could change once Trump’s team is finalised and his working agenda is revealed.”