FLASH
Shkruar nga Lionel Laurent
The red line of the extreme right will tie the hands of the country's president, Emmanuel Macron, as he tries to fill the void with a new prime minister, and resume the arduous journey towards passing a functioning budget.
France is doing a much better job of protecting its monuments than of making democracy work. Even as Notre Dame Cathedral rises from the ashes as a symbol of unity in troubled times, Europe's No. 2 economy is facing unprecedented instability after far-right leader Marine Le Pen teamed up with the left to oust the government of Michel Barnier and to reject his budget.
At a time when the entire region is vulnerable to Donald Trump's trade threats and Vladimir Putin's war machine, this is a journey into the unknown that the West does not need at all. The parliamentary chaos is highlighting the ruins of France's political landscape after the successive blows of the pandemic and inflation, and the end of the good progress of economic growth and the creation of new jobs.
Barnier's plan to cut the French deficit by €60 billion through austerity measures was never going to be a crowd pleaser. Yet it is shocking to see how easily he was hijacked by politicians who are more interested in the 2027 presidential election than budget math.
By imposing "red lines", demanding more anti-austerity measures and ousting the Barnier government after just 89 days, Le Pen has delivered a symbolic coup on the ruling elites, but without offering any real answers to the deep demographic decline and productivity.
The red line of the extreme right will tie the hands of the country's president, Emmanuel Macron, as he tries to fill the void with a new prime minister, and resume the arduous journey towards passing a functioning budget.
France's parliament is deadlocked, lacking even a minimum majority, reflecting an increasingly polarized society. Moreover, new elections are not possible until at least the middle of next year.
And while the national interest would ideally take precedence, with €350 billion in debt and €40 billion in interest payments due next year, the alluring prospect of power in a winner-take-all system will make politicians remain in search of easy victories, but with great risks.
If the new crisis the country has just entered will cause more anger or social unrest, then Macron's post itself will be at risk. Financial markets are currently coping with the chaos caused by this development. And this is normal, because what is happening is not yet a crisis like the one in Greece or Italy.
The institutions of the Fifth Republic offer many ways to maintain the functioning of the state in emergency cases, all of which are aided by the support of the European Union and the euro. Which seems quite ironic, considering Le Pen's failed campaign for "Frexit", that is, to remove the country from the eurozone.
Then there is also the "Notre Dame" effect: the national wealth of France, worth over 680 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, is a long-term guaranteed counterweight to the current pile of debt and political instability.
However, the combination of rising implicit market borrowing costs and rapid approval of government spending month after month is highly problematic. Because it could lead to fiscal austerity indefinitely, as Bloomberg Economics points out.
This approach would seriously damage the French economy, without assuring investors worried about the trajectory the debt would follow in the long term. There is a great danger that a slow process of degradation will penetrate deep into institutions and society.
It is difficult to imagine that a statist France, that is, where the state has a very broad role, can move quickly in all the directions required. Marine Le Pen's apparent victory on behalf of French purchasing power risks being a Pyrrhic Triumph, i.e. with a lot of collateral damage.
And as one of Europe's leading geopolitical voices and the EU's sole nuclear power, France's fading influence is as obvious as it gets at the worst possible time. With Trump's return to the White House and the prospect of a peace deal with Putin hanging over the heads of Ukrainians, a Europe that is stronger and better able to defend itself is needed. The governing coalition in Germany itself is falling apart, although there is more optimism about what comes next than in France.
Great Britain, which looks much more stable today than it did at the time of Brexit, is about to come under great pressure to choose between Europe or remaining an island on the high seas, as Winston Churchill once put it. . If Macron is unable to unite France and focus the country's energies on fixing its internal problems, the glorious reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral may be all that will remain of his legacy./ Adapt "Pamphlet" from Bloomberg
Lini një Përgjigje