🇫🇷Far-right blackmail and left-wing fears
The Michel Barnier government hangs by a thread, the RN clings to it's Ardennes seat, and left-wing actors manoeuvre towards 2027
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This week
🧵Barnier government hangs by a thread
🧗The RN clings to Ardennes seat
🌹Left-wing actors manoeuvre towards 2027
🧵Barnier government hangs by a thread
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So, we live in interesting times.
The goal of the government is to find around €60 billion in savings and to bring the deficit down to 5% of GDP in 2025 (compared to 6.1% in 2024), meaning that the Barnier government has taken an aggressive approach to this budget and has been playing a careful balancing act.
With an Assemblée National that is neatly divided into three warring camps, with the far-left and far-right having very strong representation amongst these camps, and with the ever-violent budget debate ongoing, things are only getting more and more interesting.
Which is why the atmosphere appears so apocalyptic for Prime Minister Michel Barnier, forced to consider the use of Article 49.3 of the French constitution to force through part of the budget.
As you may remember reading in your favourite newsletter, this was a strategy employed by the Macronist camp under Elizabeth Borne and Gabriel Attal, and has habitually lead to censorship votes against the governments of the day.
Which is exactly why past, present, and future presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen is currently blackmailing Michel Barnier on the upcoming Social Security budget, demanding concessions (“negotiations” as she calls it) lest she support the censorship vote.
Interviewed in La Tribune on Sunday, Marine Le Pen waxed lyrical about censorship not being “inevitable”, and talked about remaining “constructive” unless the Prime Minister refused to negotiate.
At which point, it would be Barnier who would have taken “the decision to trigger censorship” on himself, by committing the grave act of not doing what he’s told by someone who wants new legislative elections in July 2025.
For those curious about what these red lines are: no electricity tax beyond the level before the tariff shield, cancelling the partial de-indexation of pensions from inflation, and ensuring the de-reimbursement of medicines.
All this despite the agreement found between deputies and senators in the joint committee on Wednesday 27 November.
Unfortunately, with two-thirds of the Assemblée being comprised of a far-right and a far-left bloc both trying to win the 2027 legislative election and with both blocs being incredibly mad about the fact that they didn’t get to nominate their Prime Minister, these agreements don’t necessarily hold a lot of water.
Which means that the expected motion of censure on Monday, and the eventual vote on Wednesday, will be fascinating to say the least.
🧗The RN clings to Ardennes seat
Next up on the agenda is the partial legislative election in the Ardennes, where 27-year-old far-right candidate Jordan Duflot (RN) and is playing from the same music sheet as the rest of the party.
So, to give some backstory: it seems that the previous deputy, Flavien Termet (RN) had tiptoed out of the position after being parachuted in from Britany at the ripe age of 22, handily winning with 52.99% of the vote in the 2024 legislative elections.
You may have seen him on social media: as the youngest elected official of the Assemblée traditionally serves as the secretary for the first session, you will have seen the videos of his fellow deputies refusing to shake his hand.
Regardless, he announced his resignation on 30 September 2024 for “personal, medical reasons”, which was met and has been followed by absolute silence, with nobody has talked about.
Aside from some rumours of hidden reasons that will emerge “eventually”.
Anywho, with the by-election taking place on Sunday 1st and Sunday 8th December, we’ll see the results sometime tonight for the first round. However, with the far-right having such a high vote share, we can safely assume that the RN will make it to the second round of the election at the very least.
🌹Left-wing actors manoeuvre towards 2027
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We’re never short of elections in France, and with Laurent Wauquiez (Les Républicains) having announced his intentions to run in 2027, followed by Edouard Phillippe (Horizons) and Gérald Darmanin (Gérald Darmanin), it’s not the turn of the left to start figuring itself out.
This week saw eternal presidential candidate and far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, as well as former Nouveau Front Populaire Prime Ministerial candidate Lucie Castets, and head of the French Ecologists Marine Tondelier, calling for a common candidate for the left.
Announcing that they “must now organise ourselves to obtain a majority in Parliament and win the next presidential election”, Castets and Tondelier argued against the infighting within the left-wing coalition, and for partners to avoid forcing one name or another as a pre-requisite for this coalition.
“[This project must be] ambitious and solid, anchored in daily concerns ... So that our parents are properly cared for, so that our children grow up on a habitable planet, so that everyone can live decently from their salary, so that our civil liberties are respected and so that France can remain proud of its motto.”
While they called for a team effort, they’re going to run into one very big, loud barrier to this:
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of La France Insoumise had spoken the day before this op-ed had been put forward, giving a speech where he called on those who ‘want to unite with’ his party to put forward a common candidacy.
“We are in favour of a joint candidacy. We said it ten times, based on the program. And as we will go with the program, well, come whoever wants, it is welcome,"
-Jean-Luc Mélenchon speaking on Friday 29 November
However, as you can imagine, this is mostly about creating Mélenchon’s fourth run at a Presidential candidate, having excluded the Communist Party and “the right-wing of the Socialist party” due to these actively criticising his behaviour and the behaviour of the party towards just about everyone else whenever there’s even a mild disagreement.
It definitely has nothing to do with an apparently ascendant competitor, and former President, Francois Hollande.
With La France Insoumise putting their back into a campaign to link the potential fall of Michel Barnier to an early presidential election, the goal is to be to avoid marching into any future elections with the same weakness that was seen in the last European elections, where the Parti Socialiste was the party on the left with the highest vote share and share of seats.
With the far-left star slowly appearing to fade, and with the PS actively rebuilding far more successfully than their former competitors, Les Républicains, Mélenchon will be afraid about another potential fall into second or third place.
The only way for Mélenchon’s dreams to be realised is for him to be the head of a coalition that he can effectively force to do his bidding due to electoral power, and unfortunately, if he is going to rely on his popularity and that of his acolytes (highlighted below), that would end very poorly for him.
and with Francois Holland being one of the most popular left-wing politicians in the country, just behind Bernard Cazeneuve (PS, 27%) and Raphael Glucksmann (PS-PP, 27%) , Jean-Luc Mélenchon could have a lot to worry about.
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Isn’t that what one would expect though from RN? They need to be shown to be driving a hard bargain before they turn around and not vote for the censure because they are “responsible”?