On Monday last week, French prime minister Sebastien Lecornu resigned after just 27 days in office, making him the shortest-serving prime minister in the history of the Fifth Republic and the fourth to fall in 13 months. His government collapsed before it was even sworn in, unable to survive the toxic arithmetic of a deadlocked National Assembly that has made France virtually ungovernable.
The problem traces back to French President Emmanuel Macron’s catastrophic decision to call a snap legislative election last year. That gamble, designed to head off the surging far right, instead entrenched a three-way parliamentary deadlock among the left, the center right and Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally. No bloc commands anywhere near the 289 seats needed for a majority. Worse, Macron’s far-right archrival emerged with just enough seats to topple any government by joining forces with the left on confidence votes.
The Fifth Republic, established when Charles de Gaulle returned to power in 1958, was designed to concentrate power in the presidency and avoid chronic instability. However, the system depends on either a clear presidential majority or a clear opposition that is willing to govern in “cohabitation” with the president. Any government emerging from the deeply splintered National Assembly that emerged after last year’s election was destined to be fragile.
The immediate trigger was next year’s budget. Last year, France’s deficit hit 5.8 percent of GDP, while public debt climbed to 113 percent. Lecornu was appointed to do what his predecessors could not: form a government that could bring the deficit down before the year’s end. However, this implies politically painful spending cuts, and both the Socialists (who are demanding a rollback of Macron’s pension reform) and the center right (which balks at tax increases) have refused to compromise.
In the event, when Lecornu unveiled his Cabinet on Sunday night, it looked less like the “rupture” he had promised than a reshuffling of the old guard, complete with the return of Bruno Le Maire, the former finance minister who is widely blamed for adding 1 trillion euros (US$1.16 trillion) to France’s debt. With even Lecornu’s center-right partners threatening to walk, he resigned before parliament could vote him out.
Then, in an unprecedented move, Macron accepted Lecornu’s resignation, but asked him to spend two more days searching for a budget compromise. If Lecornu failed, Macron would “take all his responsibilities” — a statement universally interpreted as a threat to dissolve parliament and hold a fresh election in November. That threat concentrated minds. By Wednesday last week, Lecornu reported having found “possibilities for compromise,” with all parties except the far right and the hard left opposing dissolution and agreeing on the urgency of passing a budget this year.
The price of that compromise would be steep — and still would not be guaranteed. Macron would likely have to accept a suspension of his flagship 2023 pension reform — a humiliating reversal that would increase France’s deficit by billions of euros in 2027 — and a less ambitious deficit target of just under 5 percent rather than the 4.6 percent originally proposed.
Whoever Macron appoints as new prime minister will lead an extraordinarily fragile government. (Editor’s note: Macron on Friday last week reappointed Lecornu as prime minister.) With no majority and not even a reliable, large minority in the National Assembly, they will have to cobble together majorities for each line of next year’s budget before mid-December, without relying on emergency constitutional powers. Former French prime minister Edouard Philippe has said that his 29 deputies would never support suspending pension reform. The Socialists will push for higher taxes on the wealthy; the center-right will oppose them and demand spending cuts. The far left and far right will attempt to block progress. Macron could make massive concessions yet still end up with a government that collapses within weeks.
If that happens, Macron’s options narrow further. He could dissolve parliament and call a snap election. That would relieve the short-term pressure for Macron to resign, which even some of his former allies, including Philippe, are calling for. However, polls suggest that his centrist bloc would be crushed, with the National Rally emerging strengthened, but probably short of a majority.
Another hung parliament would make a budget agreement all but impossible. Macron could keep appointing new prime ministers indefinitely — but after losing four in a year and with his approval rating at just 17 percent, that path would deepen the sense that he is ignoring the will of parliament and the people.
Alternatively, he could keep a censured prime minister as caretaker and roll over the 2025 budget using emergency legislation. That would push the deficit toward 6 percent and further spook bond markets. French borrowing costs have already spiked to near-Italian levels; the spread over German Bunds hit 0.88 percentage points on Monday last week, close to its widest since 2012.
If Le Pen’s National Rally were to eke out a narrow majority in early elections, France might finally get a budget for next year — just not a fiscally credible one. While Le Pen favors more social spending, her likely prime minister candidate, Jordan Bardella, favors tax cuts. Neither is interested in the deficit-cutting reforms that markets, rating agencies and the EU are demanding.
Moreover, a National Rally government would also force an unprecedentedly adversarial cohabitation between Macron and a far-right prime minister. Under the Fifth Republic’s constitution, the president shapes foreign policy, but major initiatives require parliamentary ratification. A hostile National Rally majority could actively undermine not just French fiscal discipline, but also EU cohesion and support for Ukraine.
The bottom line is that a snap legislative election would not make France more governable. It would just reset the deadlock or hand power to the far right. Only a presidential election can break the logjam in a constitutional system that was not built to handle this kind of fragmentation. That means either 18 more months of paralysis, market jitters and mounting public frustration that will fuel the populist fire, or a reckoning that brings the far right closer than ever to the Elysee Palace.
Even if Macron limps through the next 18 months, the damage is done. Business investment has declined for two consecutive years. Economists estimate the turmoil since Macron dissolved parliament in June last year has already cost 0.5 percentage points of GDP. The longer the paralysis drags on, the worse things will get, and the more the far right will be able to present itself as the only force capable of breaking the logjam.
The cruel irony is that Macron launched his career in 2017 precisely to save France from the far right. Instead, he has delivered the far right the best shot at power it has ever had. The only question now is whether France reaches that reckoning in the next few months — or in a year and a half.
Ian Bremmer, founder and president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media, is a member of the Executive Committee of the UN High-level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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