Emmanuel Macron addressed the French people on Thursday night and once again ruled out the possibility he will resign before his mandate expires in 2027.
As for appointing a new Prime Minister – his fourth this year – Macron said he would nominate Michel Barnier’s successor in ‘the coming days’.
The big decisions concerning France are no longer made in Paris, but in Brussels
Also on television on Thursday evening were the ‘extremists’ who Macron blames for bringing down Barnier’s government. Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Melenchon gave lengthy interviews in which they justified their actions and, in the case of the latter, called on Macron to resign.
Would it make much difference to France if Macron granted Melenchon his wish? The big decisions concerning France are no longer made in Paris, but in Brussels, by the most powerful politician in Europe.
At the same time as Macron was doing his utmost to sound presidential, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the EU Commission, touched down in Uruguay. ‘The finish line of the EU-Mercosur agreement is in sight,’ she said upon her arrival. ‘We have the chance to create a market of 700 million people. The largest trade and investment partnership the world has ever seen. Both regions will benefit.’
That’s not how France sees it, and on Thursday Macron reiterated his opposition to the Mercosur agreement, which is predicted to decimate French agriculture while boosting German manufacturing. The Federation of German Industries is right behind the deal as it will give them access to 265 million South American consumers, great for their car manufacturers and the chemical industry.
Calling the deal ‘unacceptable as it stands’, Macron promised to ‘continue to tirelessly defend our agricultural sovereignty’.
This is rhetoric to warm the hearts of French farmers, who are bitterly opposed to the Mercosur agreement, but in reality it is all hot air from the president. As Macron’s Brazilian’s counterpart, Lula, explained last week: ‘If the French do not want the agreement, they do not have the last word on the matter, it is the European Commission that decides. Ursula von der Leyen has the power to conclude the agreement and I intend to sign this agreement this year’.
Assuming von der Leyen does put pen to paper in the coming hours, it will be the second humiliation she has inflicted on Macron this year. The first was in September when she instructed him to remove Thierry Breton as the country’s EU Commissioner and replace him with the more malleable Stéphane Séjourné. As a French commission official remarked: ‘This says a lot about the loss of French influence that they weren’t able to impose Breton.’
The French press suspect von der Leyen of exploiting the country’s political chaos to sign off the Mercosur deal despite the opposition of Macron. Le Figaro reports that the president ‘was caught off guard’ by von der Leyen’s trip to South America, and ‘in a hasty manner’ called the Commission president to remind her of France’s objection to the agreement.
During her television appearance on Thursday evening, Marine Le Pen took aim at the EU, specifically criticising the bloc’s electricity pricing system, which she claimed is rigged in Germany’s favour.
Asked if she was in favour of Frexit, Le Pen replied in the negative but if her party wants to ‘reindustrialise’ France that won’t be possible until the country takes back control from Brussels. As her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, said in a speech in 2005, on the eve of the French referendum vote on the EU Constitution, it is the EU which is responsible for the deindustrialisation of France.
In 2017 Macron and Marine Le Pen reached the second round of the presidential election, and a crucial moment in the election campaign was a televised debate between the pair. Macron won handsomely, and just about the only blow landed by Le Pen was when they discussed the EU.
Macron was all in favour of closer ties with Brussels, and Le Pen was against. ‘France will be led by a woman’, she taunted her rival. ‘Either me or Madame Merkel’.
She was on the right lines. France is run by a German woman, though it’s not the Chancellor but the president of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.