Emmanuel Macron will address the French people this evening, 24 hours after parliament passed a vote of no confidence in the president’s government. Millions of French will likely tune in and the majority – 63 per cent, according to one poll – would love it to be a resignation speech.
No chance, according to the man himself. Earlier this week Macron said he would remain in the Elysee Palace ‘until the very last second of my term to serve the country.’
The fact is that France is in unchartered waters and no one knows what will happen in the coming weeks and months
Thursday’s newspapers in France pore over the vote of no confidence and its ramifications, although as Le Figaro admits the country is ‘in the great unknown’.
Le Monde has sought the advice of legal and constitutional experts in an attempt to map a way forward. Comparisons are drawn with 1962, the only other time a government of the Fifth Republic lost a vote of no confidence. On that occasion, the National Assembly was dissolved and the people went to the polls to elect a new government. That is not possible in 2024 because the constitution states that two legislative elections cannot be held within 12 months, and so the earliest date for fresh elections is July 8, 2025.
As if to underline the uncertainty into which Macron has plunged France this year, Le Monde’s panel of experts can’t even decide on what happens to the bills that Barnier’s government have been working on since September. Some say they are immediately buried, including the budget for 2025, but others disagree, arguing that there is no reason to invalidate them.
The fact is that France is in unchartered waters and no one knows what will happen in the coming weeks and months.
One thing is certain: the image of France has taken a battering this year. The Republic once prided itself on its suave and subtle diplomacy, at home and abroad, but today its reputation is in ruins.
Amid all the drama in Paris this week, it has gone largely unnoticed that in recent days both Chad and Senegal have severed military ties with France. ‘Why should there be French soldiers in Senegal?’ asked President Bassirou Diomaye Faye. ‘This doesn’t correspond to our conception of sovereignty and independence.’
Across the world, France’s influence and standing has diminished during Macron’s presidency. He has antagonised numerous world leaders with his arrogance and off-hand attitude, as he has also alienated his own diplomatic corps.
But that is nothing compared to the detestation he arouses among most French people. Tens of thousands of them are expected in the streets today in a day of organised industrial action. Schools will be closed, flights cancelled and health services impacted as these sectors protest against the government’s austerity measures outlined in the budget.
Now Barnier’s budget is no more, but that won’t deter the protestors. Today’s nationwide demonstrations will serve as a warning to Macron as he contemplates his next move. Next week the railwaymen go on strike.
The pandemonium in parliament this week has also distracted attention from the rampant insecurity that has gripped France in recent years and which shows no sign of abating. Last week government figures revealed sexual violence on the public transport network increased by 15 per cent last year.
Then there’s the menace of the drug cartels, laid bare in a recent report published by the National Audit Office. Citing evidence of growing corruption among police, prison guards and customs officials, the audit office criticised the government for failing to translate its tough rhetoric ‘into concrete action’.
Today’s editorial in Le Figaro is a brutal, bleak and honest analysis of Macron’s France. It is a country ‘on the brink of financial collapse and economic decline… plagued by indiscriminate and rampant crime, and hit by a destabilisation of migration that is magnifying its difficulties. France is in a state of upheaval.’
There will be a brief respite on Saturday for Macron when he takes centre stage at the official reopening of the renovated Notre-Dame cathedral, five years after it was gutted by fire. If only France was as easy to reconstruct.