Balaclavas, Broken Alliances & Bond Ratings
From a far-right attack on an LFI rally in Lille to the collapsing centrist coalition between Renaissance and Les Républicains in Montluçon - and what Fitch's A+ rating means for France.
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This week
🇮🇷Europe on the Brink: Iran, Macron’s Nuclear Stakes & the Fracturing Atlantic Alliance
📣Far-right attacks LFI event seeking “justice for Quentin”
🙅♂️Renaissance pulls support for Les Républicains over far-right alliance
📈Fitch maintains French A+ debt rating
🇮🇷Europe on the Brink: Iran, Macron’s Nuclear Stakes & the Fracturing Atlantic Alliance
So, before we start off this dispatch, many of you will have seen that I had the pleasure of sitting down with Professor Annelise Riles from Everyday Ambassador on Tuesday to discuss the ongoing political carnage around the Iran war, the impact on Europe and NATO, as well as Emmanuel Macron’s new Nuclear gambit.
If you missed it or haven’t had the chance to check it out yet, you can find the link below, and I fully recommend subscribing to Annelise and reading her excellent content.
Now, lets get to it.
📣Far-right attacks LFI event seeking “justice for Quentin”
So, to start the week off: four balaclava-wearing individuals were arrested this Friday night (6th March), at a Lille meeting of mayoral candidate, Patrick Proisy (LFI) where roughly 100 of his supporters were in attendance.
Around ten individuals wearing balaclavas having managed to penetrate the political event, carrying placards with statements like “Justice for Quentin”, directly referencing the far-right militant who was murdered in Lyon by far-left activists.
You can read more about that here:
Quentin Deranque Case in Lyon: Seven Arrested, LFI Under Pressure, Macron and Merz Respond to Trump Tariffs
A homicide investigation in Lyon, mounting political pressure on La France Insoumise, and a growing EU pushback after Donald Trump’s tariff threats.
Naturally, these individuals did not limit themselves to simply protesting, and lined up directly in front of the stage beginning to throw various objects such as fake blood, flour, and cans.
Fortunately, nobody was injured, and the police arrived fairly quickly to arrest four of the individuals, allowing the political meeting to continue.
Mayoral Candidate Patrick Proisy, who experienced the age-old french tradition of being covered in Flour during a political activity, announced his plans to lodge a legal complaint following the activity.
Now, fortunately the far-right didn’t arrive in a large violent mass or provoke the appearance of a far-left violent mass, so any potential repeat of the tragedy in Lyon that led to Quentin Deranque being murdered during an extremist melee was avoided.
However, if as we expect there will be more of these events taking place, with protests linked to Quentin Deranque’s murder to be expected at a not insignificant portion of the La France Insoumise events, with the end result being up in the air.
Likewise, we can imagine the far-left to engage in similar protesting, either as an external part of the anti-far-right cordon sanitaire, or simply in revenge for their events being targeted.
And with how high emotions are, combined with how violent extremist politics can be, we may be facing a major powder keg between now and the second round on the 22nd of March.
🙅♂️Renaissance pulls support for Les Républicains over far-right alliance
So, sticking with the Municipal elections, it’s looking like a fight has kicked off between Renaissance and Les Républicains over the election taking place in Montluçon.
So, we’re about seven days out from the first round of these elections, and somehow there is still no real campaign occuring because nobody has figured out who is with who, voting for who, what the alliances are, what the logos are, or what is going on.
The outgoing candidate, Frédéric Laporte, was the leading candidate until recently, being the chosen one for the Renaissance (Centre) and Les Républicains (Centre-right) coalition.
However, that all ended when Reconquête ! (far-right), led by Eric Zemmour, published its “support without reserve” for Laporte, before the local Reconquête delegate,Jean-Antoine Rosati, made a statement that killed the centrist alliance pretty much immediately.
“This is not just a call to vote; we want to have elected representatives in the Allier department... Frédéric Laporte’s program aligns with our values in three areas: security, with plans to increase resources; health, with a focus on public hospitals; and the economy, with lower taxes to benefit the population.”
Cue carnage
So, Zemmour’s party is already represented in the Montluçon community by Pierre Laroche, who was elected in 2014, is currently a mayoral deputy, and joined Reconquête shortly after it’s creation, and who is currently fifth on this coalitions list of candidates.
However, a local Zemmourist member speaking to Le Monde made it clear that there were also plenty of other members of the far-right party on this electoral list.
While Laporte tried to keep his head above water by rejected any alliance or support from the far-right, this wasn’t enough for the Macronists, and the moment that Renaissance realised what had happened with Laportes electoral list, they immediately pulled the rug:
“We learned from a press release issued by Reconquête! on February 20 that this party supports the mayor. The president of the CNI [National Nomination Committee], Franck Riester, and the national teams of Renaissance contacted the mayor of Montluçon and our local teams on Saturday, February 21, to remind them of our doctrine: no agreements or ties with extremists.”
So now here we are, with seven days to go until voting day, and this election is going to be a huge mess.
Now, a big part of this will be down to the fact that there are many factions within Les Républicains who leaned towards the far-right alliance doctrine of former leader, Eric Ciotti, who is famous for his Michael Jackson impression after having kicked everybody out of party headquarters.
And while many supporters did leave to join him in his new far-right party, the “Union of the Right for the Republic”, many hung back in Les Républicains out of fear of losing positions, funding, power, or their network.
So you can expect a few more events like this in future.
📈Fitch maintains French A+ debt rating
So, politicking aside, let’s finish this off with one piece of good news:
Despite the ongoing financial difficulties facing the French economy, not helped by the recent French political crisis that derailed just about everything, the Fitch ratings agency maintained an A+ rating on French debt.
This has been helped by the fact that growth in 2025 ended up being stronger than predicted, sitting at 0.9% for the year instead of the expected 0.7%. Likewise, the French deficit being reduced to 5.4% of French GDP also contributed to this.
In their statement announcing the rating, the following was said:
“France's ratings are underpinned by its large, diversified high-income economy, with per capita income and governance indicators above the median for 'A' category peers. These strengths are complemented by strong institutional quality, eurozone membership, a sound banking sector and excellent access to financing with a diverse investor base. Its ratings are weighed down by high and rising debt, a socio-political context that makes medium-term fiscal consolidation hard and low potential growth.”
However, the ratings agency also made it clear that the French economy was, in no small part, at the mercy of the political situation and the upcoming electoral calendar, which limited the possibilities for the French economy.
“The political complexity of the 2026 budget negotiations reinforces Fitch's view that there is limited scope for significant front-loaded fiscal consolidation ahead of the 2027 presidential election, and that negotiations over the 2027 budget will be similarly challenging. Assuming the temporary surtax on large corporates expires in 2027, Fitch projects France's fiscal deficit would widen to above 5.0% of GDP in the absence of measures to offset rising interest costs (0.2% of GDP), defence spending commitments (0.1% of GDP) and higher age-related spending.”
Let’s hope that the French government can build upon this good news.
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Basically, Zemmour is still in the shadows and running the show. Hell