🇫🇷 Political negotiations and foolishness
Bayrou to use article 49.3 on budget, Socialists play Footsie with Bayrou and Mélenchon, Macron to propose Ferrand as President of Const. Council, and Yannick Jadot goes rogue, kills political career
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This week
🏦Bayrou to use article 49.3 on French budget
🌹Socialists play footsie with Bayrou and Mélenchon
☢️EDF increases nuclear energy production estimation
🏛️Macron to propose Ferrand as President of the Constitutional Council
🌳Yannick Jadot goes rogue, kills political career
🏦Bayrou to use article 49.3 on French budget
Right, let’s start the week off strong.
Announced this Saturday in La Tribune Dimanche, Prime Minister François Bayrou announced that he will use article 49.3 of the French constitution to engage the responsibility of the government and push through the various parts of the French budget for 2025.
Following the conclusion of the joint committee, comprised of seven deputies and seven senators, a common version of the state budget has been agreed with eight votes in favour and six against.
Planned to be presented to the Parliament on Monday, 3 February 2024, it appears to generally be faithful to Michel Barnier’s proposals from last year; there have been several changes, offers, and bargains made by Bayrou and his team in an attempt to survive an expectedly problematic vote.
“Now, we must move on to adoption without delay. A country like ours cannot remain without a budget. The only way is to hold the government accountable. It will be done this Monday”
For the uninitiated who recently joined us in the subscriber surge: Article 49, paragraph 3 of the French constitution allows the Prime Minister to engage the responsibility of his government on the vote of a legal text.
If he does this, then the text is considered to be automatically adopted, UNLESS there is a motion of censure put forward within the 24 hours that follow, and this motion is voted for by a majority of the Assemblée within the 48 hours following its proposal.
Never say we don’t teach you things here are
.Naturally, this constitutional article is a very big reason why governments for the last few years have been in a fight with just about every opposition party when budget time comes around, and as you can see from the graphic below, the government’s 211 supporters (poorly outlined in red) have an uphill battle.
This is why Bayrou has been so careful to keep a low profile, not antagonise anyone, and has been trying to poach a certain group of left-wingers to join his cause.
Speaking of which…
🌹Socialists play Footsie with Bayrou and Mélenchon
As you will have read in last week’s Weekly Dispatch, the Olivier Faure’s socialists have been negotiating an agreement with Bayrou’s government, with Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his far-left acolytes breathing fire and making threats left, right and centre.
Which is why the Socialists have found themselves feeling incredibly uncomfortable about just about everything to do with the 2025 budget vote, and why they are currently umming and ahhing as they careen towards another internal schism.
C’est la vie.
Le Monde did an excellent write-up of the current state of affairs in the party, highlighting how the atmosphere in the Parti Socialiste has become gloomy, with deputy Laurent Baumel (PS), a close ally of Olivier Faure, stating that they “don’t have a good solution” to the impasse.
With the PS feeling that the Prime Minister kept his promises and that they received the progress that they wished from the negotiations on topics such as teacher positions and access to state medical aid, they will feel that they now need to make do from their side and, at minimum, abstain on the crucial censure motion.
Deputy Karim Bouamrane (PS) said as much to Le Parisien this week, stating that “nothing justifies the PS censoring François Bayrou", despite the fact that the PS may not be satisfied with the first Bayrou budget.
This has been backed by former President and current deputy, François Hollande, who has been making moves behind the curtains and calling for non-censorship in the name of stability.
However, the party is still split between the pro-Mélenchon current, which sees the far-left firebrand as the only option for victory, and the centre-left tendency of the old guard, currently embodied by veterans like Hollande and Cazeneuve, as well as up-and-comers like MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, Carole Delga, and Karim Bouamrane.
The pro-Mélenchon tendency is pushing hard against a budget that they believe was written by the far-right, or simply references the far-right too much, leaving PS leader Faure to walk the tightrope.
However, there is some hope for the moderate current of the party, with several deputies from the Rassemblement National calling for the budget to be blocked.
Appearing on France 3 this morning, Jean-Philippe Tanguy (RN) argued for Marine Le Pen’s troops to “associate [themselves] with the motion of censure”, coming out straight and saying that the “budget is not possible for France; It's worse than no budget” and should be “blocked.”
However, the comical part of all of this is that Tanguy was saying no less than two days ago that he was pleased, that all the RN’s red lines had been respected, and that he was overall happy with the situation, aside from an article on nuclear tariffs.
If the RN listens to Tanguy, and ends up aligning itself behind a motion of censure, as could be expected with the RN angling for early legislative elections this year to improve their political position, this could play in Bayrou’s favour.
With the RN coming out against the budget, this could give enough cover for the moderates in the PS, and potentially the Parti Communiste Français as well as the Ecologistes, to abstain from a motion of censure against Bayrou’s government or potentially vote in favour it.
However, with 289 yes votes needed to ensure a motion of censure out of the 355 deputies in opposition, this will be an incredibly tight vote, and there’s a very good chance that one of the censure motions will be successful and bring down the government.
and with c.seven months to go until we can have another legislative election, there’s still plenty of space for chaos in the gridlocked Assemblée.
☢️EDF increases nuclear energy production estimation
Now for some good news - EDF announced this past Thursday that its predicted nuclear production estimates for 2025 and 2025, set at 335 and 365 TWh (Terawatt hours), will actually be higher than expected.
Now, the expectation is that the French nuclear production estimation is between 350 and 370 TWh for both years, with a similar estimation for 2027.
Of course, this is benefiting from the recently connected Flamanville EPR, covered in the last Weekly Dispatch of 2024, which is part of a new generation of European nuclear reactors that will not only bolster the French energy system, but also enable France to support our fellow Europeans with home-produced energy that will allow us to continue moving away from fossil fuels.
With Flamanville expected to provide energy for two million homes (count the zeroes), France is still waiting for EDF to construct and put into action an additional six nuclear reactions, with another eight reactors as potential add-ons in the contract.
But all of this relies on France, firstly, having a budget, secondly, a functioning political environment, and on top of this, a budgetary framework that will allow the severely indebted EDF to build these projects.
We know, we’re asking a lot right now, but someone has to!
🏛️Macron to propose Ferrand as President of the Constitutional Council
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Back to the politics of it all, there is a debate brewing that will definitely land on television platforms fairly soon, with Emmanuel Macron working on a proposal to place Richard Ferrand (REN) as the President of the Constitutional Council.
Richard Ferrand was the president of the Assemblée National between 2018 and 2022, as well as President of the LaREM group back in 2017. He also happens to be one of the long-term loyalists within the Macronist party, having joined in the early days of En Marche ! as General Secretary of the movement.
With former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius (PS) nearing the end of his nine-year mandate, President Emmanuel Macron has until Saturday 8 March to nominate his successor.
This will be done in concert with two other members that have to be appointed by the President of the Assemblée National and the President of the Senate.
The process for the nominations is legally fairly simple but can be politically problematic.
For nominations by the President of the French Republic, all nominations are subject to a parliamentary approval process, with the relevant committees of both the Senate and the Assemblée needing to vote in favour of the nomination.
For the nomination to be withdrawn, three-fifths of the members of either committee have to vote against the nomination.
🌳Yannick Jadot goes rogue, kills political career
And to finish up the week, we have a story about former MEP and current Senator Yannick Jadot’s attempt at strong-arming his party into supporting his candidacy by default, going incredibly poorly.
For some background: 2026 will see the municipal elections take place across France, with the Mayoralty of Paris being up for grabs as Anne Hidalgo (PS) steps down after 12 years in her position.
This, naturally, leaves a large gap in the political make-up of the city, with Hidalgo having had a stranglehold on the politics of the city and having seen off a fierce challenge in 2020.
Which is what Yannick Jadoct (EELV) wanted to exploit to his advantage as senator for Paris, announcing his candidacy for Mayor of Paris on Monday 20 January in Le Parisien and attempted to marshal support from candidacy.
He even went as far as publicly refusing to participate in a primary for the Ecologist candidacy in this election, appearing to attempt to exploit his seniority to bully out any competition and force himself as the default candidate.
“If the other candidates stay, I will not participate … I don't want to add division to division” - Yannick Jadot, Thursday 30 January
Unfortunately for him, and despite some attempts from EELV leader, Marine Tondelier and several other deputies, he now faces fierce competition not only from his own party, but his colleagues in the Nouveau Front Populaire coalition.
All of this has led to Jadot apparently killing his candidacy in what can only be described as an incredibly bizarre and insecure tantrum that betrays a severe lack of confidence in himself.
However, it should also be noted that typically, there aren’t really primaries for the Mayor of Paris candidacies, so the whole thing has a very dramatic left-wing vibe to it, but it is what it is.
So, there’s now going to be several candidacies for the candidacy, with:
Fatoumata Koné (EELV) - leader of the Ecologist Group in the Paris Council
Aminata Niakaté (EELV) - Councillor of the 15th arrondissement
David Belliard (PS) - Former deputy to Anne Hidalgp
Anne-Claire Boux (PS) - Former deputy to Anne Hidalgp
All actively campaigning to represent the ecologists in the Paris election.
Now, as you can imagine, this will likely waste time that could have been better used campaigning, aligning the troops, and creating policy platforms that will allow them to place well, and will likely instead lead to recriminations in the party from Jadotists and other wings of the ecologists.
Not only this, but you now have two Socialists apparently attempting to hijack the Ecologist primary election to their own gain, as they don’t believe themselves capable of being able to muscle out Rémi Féraud or Emmanuel Grégoire, both outperforming Hidalgo’s expected score in polls.
The biggest risk for the left, however, isn’t infighting. It’s the candidates they will have to compete with.
With the Mairie having been held for a period of 25 years by the Parti Socialiste, polls are indicating that the next Mayor will either be a Républicain in the form of Rachida Dati (LR-REN) or former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal (REN), who are both polling north of 35% for the first round.
However, Attal may not want to take the risk of a political defeat ahead of the 2027 Presidential Elections, with Rachida Dati being the most likely candidate from the centre and the centre-right, having missed out in the 2020 elections.
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Melanchon is like "The guy is too uncool for the old school" x)