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In what most people were expecting to be the first rather than third nation-state to take an embarrassing stumble/near fall this week (thanks Syria and South Korea), the French Republic has collapsed as well...
...or at least the government, as Michel Barnier goes down as the shortest term Prime Minister in modern French political history. Lasting about 3 months, which is to say about twice of long as the UK's shortest and longer than a head of lettuce. (Barnier will stay in place as a caretaker until a new replacement is found, but is politically dead.)
It's been a bad couple of weeks for the Macron administration and French geopolitical fortunes. After the unfavored outcome of the US Presidential Election and subsequent (deliberate) collapse of the German government for elections in early 2025, France has also so far failed to find a blocking minority within the EU to derail the EU-Mercosur tract block trade agreement (which is strongly opposed by politically powerful farming and agricultural interests but is supported by German-aligned industrial interests), and in the near-abroad France's position in Francophone Africa, already weakened by the military coups last year, as Chad ended the defense pact that legalizes French presence within hours of Senegal's president calling on French to close its military bases there.
The later issues don't formally have anything specifically to do with the collapse of the French government in parliament, where the proximal cause was budget disputes. Macron's government, sensitive of the overall deficit which led French bonds to near parity with Greek bonds. While some of this is Greek rising up since the 2009 fiscal crisis, for someone of Macron's political origin in particular, this was a case of France going down. This led to trying to pass a budget with spending cuts, which allowed the French opposition- and crucially the Le Pen faction that had previously offered conditional support- to invoke a vote of no confidence. Since blocking the bill and no confidence were tied, it was functionally a dare to Le Pen to do so, given that Le Pen has been able to extract policy concessions to date as condition for maintaining support.
Le Pen turning against the ruling party so wasn't exactly unexpected, given that the French government prosecutors just last month were seeking to jail Le Pen for two years and bar her from running for office for five, which would include the next French presidential election in 2027 where Le Pen would be a front runner, over an ongoing case accusing her of using EU parliament funds for party staff between 2004 and 2016.
(This case's timeline- which was coincidentally only prosecuted in the later half of this year after Le Pen's unexpectedly strong showing in the July 2024 elections where her party 'only' got third after leading the first of two rounds of voting- also coincidentally loosely corresponds to the rough timing of when La Pen's cash-strapped party took a Russian bank loan to keep the party afloat in 2014, which is one of the origins of the accusations of French far right and Russian alignment and general themes of Putin bankrolling anyone right of European center. In 2015, the then-EU President, German but general French ally Martin Schulz, initiated a fraud investigation on the basis of La Pen EU-parliamentary assistants also being members of La Pen's french political party. (This is nominally illegal, despite the strong overlap between EU and national political parties- see Poland's Donald Tusk.) Part of Le Pen's public reasoning behind taking the loan from a Russian bank was that no one else would. Given the long struggle between the Le Pen family and the French establishment, the lack of funding at the time may not have been a total coincidence, nor the timing of the prosecution nearly a decade after it's initial public reporting.)
The so-what for this fall is that the French Government, like the German government last month, has entered a period of chaotic ambiguity that won't resolve itself more clearly until next year. The French parliament is roughly divided into thirds between Macron's centrists, Le Pen's right, and the socialist left, meaning the next Prime Minister is going to be equally weak and beholden to external support. The French government will enter into next year without much ability to pass new laws (i.e. in response to Trump / Russia-Ukraine / anything else), and without a 2025 budget or a clear way to get to one either (other than capitulation to either of the other wings).
Strictly speaking this doesn't require new elections under the French government. In fact, per its Constitution France can't hold new parliamentary elections until a year after the last one, i.e. until July 2025. Further, the next Presidential election is scheduled for 2027, and Macron could, in theory, just ride out years of instability and institutional paralysis. On the other hand, an opposition-parliament could be so obstructionist/frustrating that the political gridlock crisis compels a resignation and new elections.
In practice, I'd suspect new elections in July, if only to try and break the gridlock and try and get a majority one way or the other. If Le Pen and various far-right elites are barred from election for the next few years, a summer election could enable Macron a chance to try and disrupt Le Pen's control of her party by letting more co-optable persons rise... but I'd also say this is a desperation concept for someone in a desperate context.
But as for what else this might mean for Europe in 2025? It remains to be seen. A lot of variables no one can credibly claim to know the full impact of are in play, ranging from Trump to the German election to now France. Given how even the UK government is on shakey legs- the UK PM Starmier has seen a -45 favorability drop since being elected in July- and several of the key power centers in Europe who will shape what can, and cannot, be politically achieved on the continent will be uncertain for some time yet.
I've always been curious about France's work in Africa. How much of this is driven by noble humanitarianism vs natural resource access vs maintaining the remnants of their colonial power?
For a state I consider generally left-of-center and focused on its own welfare state, I forget how much of a military presence they have.
When in doubt, assume more of the remnant bias.
When the term neocolonial gets thrown around, a disproportionate (or, alternative, proportional) amount of the stronger case-examples can be attributed to / derive from France and the francosphere. For a rather critical but non-European/American critique, here is a link to a Caspian Report on the french sphere of influence from last year, before the coup wave.
African operations to bolster the Francophone-sphere have been France's strategic priority for decades, to a degree that most failed European military co-development projects over the last two decades have failed over the requirements contradictions that can be tracked to the gaps between French-prioritized African requirements and German-prioritized Eastern European requirements. France is distinct among most western powers in its design prioritization of light tanks specifically for African deployability considerations. Further, France for a good part of the War on Terror era kept trying (and generally failing) to solicit European support for its African efforts. When the cases for a European Army were made to intervene without American support, the often (but not always) unspoken area for them to intervene in was north and western africa, i.e. where the Francophone zone is.
One of the under-stated (but well understood in France) consequences of the Ukraine War is that it's actually be a catalyst for the dissolution of the post-Cold War French sphere of influence in Africa. When Russia began looking in earnest for ways to try to increase costs against the Europeans for supporting Ukraine after the gas cutoffs failed, one of the most accessible / appealing / fits-Putin's-mindset was to target the French interests in Africa. How much Russia was directly involved in the African coups that brought in anti-France juntas is unclear, and to a degree irrelevant, as Russia was very willing to provide international legitimacy and new-regime security support (via Wagner) to facilitate the split by these states from France.
Which has, arguably, been a bit of a own-goal by Putin, as the suspected Russian hand in the 2023 coups not only strengthened French support for further European military contributions to Ukraine, but increased France's balance of military interests away from Africa (where it had less to keep) and more towards eastern Europe (which increases strategic interest conflict).
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At this point all I want is for IVPITER to do a South Korea and thunderbolt down every single last one of his enemies to smithereens. If the French populace decides to behave like animals the right thing to do is to treat them like animals instead of appeasing their every demand.
He has a good chance of putting his name alongside Napoleon as one of the greatest Frenchmen who ever lived if he can end the French Fifth Republic for good (which was specifically made for de Gaulle and lost all use after he was kicked out).
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Uh, was it not foreseeable that Le Pen would withdraw her support if she was targeted? Why would you go after your own coalition partner who you depend on?
Different actors and interests, and a built-in expectation of instaiblity.
Barnier is the Prime Minister. Macron is the President. The French system is a very powerful presidency, so any influence on the prosecution is more in Macron's realm than the PM's, while Macron doesn't lose his job just because Barnier does.
Barnier's weakness wasn't because of his coalition partner- the French parliament doesn't work that way in the sense that the Germans or British do- but rather because the results of the July 24 election in the first place. This is why Barnier's fall isn't so much a surprise.
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The ball is in Macron's court because of the mechanisms of the constitution.
The nation can't be governed as it is (a government by the right or the left would be immediately censored, and the one from the center just failed).
He has essentially three choices:
None are good for his political prospects.
The depth of the financial crisis that is about to hit France is not to be underestimated, it definitely possible that it would reach the same proportions as the Greek crisis, except with a major Eurozone member. And other Europeean governments are unstable as well.
Do you have a TLDR of the financial crisis about to hit France, and how likely France is to take other countries with it/leave someone else holding the bag?
I am not sure what he is specifically speaking of, but the French are in debt to the tune of 130% of GDP and are constrained by EU regulations which forbid the country from deficit spending. (They can't devalue the Euro and they can't increase the ratio any further.) Hence, budget cuts... which are despised on both the far left and the far right.
If France - one of the core members of the EU - is in trouble, then normally it would be Germany who would shoulder the burden. But in this case, Germany is in trouble too. So there's no help from them. France is more likely to have a revolution than dismantling its own welfare state... if the EU bureaucrats attempt to enforce a decision made by the troika (EC, ECB, IMF) then the French people will burn down the country. Three-way civil war.
If they don't, and do the pragmatic thing and give France an exemption, then the entire EU will ask for exemptions as well. Either way: doom.
Something like this. France has been cheating on its EU spending requirements for awhile, but using its intstitutional heft to evade consequences other states faced.
What matters more now is that while the French can pre-empt EU action, they can't force the market to not act against them. The fact that the markets have lowered the French bond rates to the level of Greece is part of the factor, since part of France's rational for avoiding restrictions was ability to maintain its debt, which is now fading.
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Do you mind expanding or posting some links as to the pending French financial crisis? I find many people love throwing out bearish statements, but rarely do they come to fruition.
I should do an effortpost on it since I've been religiously consuming economic takes on it for months now from both the left and the right.
But the short version is that France has been living above its means for a long time, that political will has never managed to lower spending and that we're so tax happy that there's no more juice to squeeze.
German style fiscal discipline is politically untenable in France, but French style dirigisme is banned by the EU. So the continuous policy of every government has been to pretend to be center-right and do potemkin reindustrialization whilst all of the actual business left the country and they grew the deficit.
And now we're at the stage where interest on debt is very large, and France barely managed to escape its bond notation being downgraded to a level that percludes safe investment funds from touching it (a now forgeone conclusion given the political instability). So it's going to become much harder to borrow, and nobody has the political will to seriously cut into the budget.
Hence how this government has fallen in fact: their budget was mostly tax increase (in the highest taxed country in the world) which is the reason stated by the RN for their key support to the censorship.
The usual next step for countries in this state is for the IMF to come in with your creditors and force you to cut things out of the budget and sell assets. The escape from that fate is to get bailed out by a friendly country, which in this case would have to be Germany, but Germany too is broke right now.
It's even less that Germany is broke and more that it is constitutionally forbidden from assuming debt that it could afford to take on. This is/was the reason for the breakdown of the German coalition, as Scholz was trying to change the debt break in order to take on more debt.
The issue for France is that it is too big for Germany to simply bail out... without substantial, major, concessions that make it extremely clear (to the German public) that it is a purchase, not a loan to never be paid back.
Imagine after all the losses they took in regaining them, France sells Alsace-Lorraine back to Germany to keep their economy afloat.
Not a likely scenario by any means, but could you imagine?
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I don't even want to imagine the political consequences of selling France to the Germans in the way Greece was. "The diktat of Munich" would take a whole new meaning.
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I'm excited to see what will shake out in Europe, as the last time I paid much attention was in July, with the previous French elections. And then there was a rally in Pennsylvania that seemed to overshadow everything. Starmer has been atrocious, but I'm not sure anyone can govern that Island. Maybe King William will have to do it.
I hadn't heard about Germany, but that may be because of the deliberate nature of the collapse you mentioned.
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