🇫🇷Musical Chairs and elections
🇫🇷Musical Chairs and elections
Macron announces power sharing with Barnier, open war between Mélenchon and Ruffin, Macron proposes annual National Celebration of sport, and Barnier misses first deadline for annual budget.
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This week
🤝Macron outline power sharing with Barnier
🥊Open war between Mélenchon and Ruffin
🏃♂️Macron proposes annual National Celebration of sport
⌛️Barnier misses first deadline for annual budget
🏦Senator Girardin loses mandate
🤝Macron announces power sharing with Barnier
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a long Weekly Dispatch after a very busy week in French politics, with the big story being the attempts by Emmanuel Macron to keep a hand on governmental affairs despite the direction of travel.
With France having seen an incredibly high level of power centralisation since the 2017 elections, many have wondered how Emmanuel Macron would react to a cohabitation government, particularly with someone like Michel Barnier who has technically-ish worked on Macron’s line during the Brexit saga.
This led to the pronouncement of a “new era” by Emmanuel Macron, who has now promised several times to give the new Prime Minister free reign over his government, in effect admitting defeat two months after the legislative elections.
Though, it’s important to note that there have been no attempts by the French President to claim victory, only assumptions by outside actors and attributions of attitudes.
“I was a president who governs, I will be a president who presides” - Emmanuel Macron in Le Havre, September 12 2024
With the French Presidency being a very particular form of leadership amongst European member states, there are questions about whether Macron will be able to do this, and whether he will be able to take a more Steinmeier-esque role where his legacy will be out of his hands.
Of course, with the ongoing work on the budgets (more on that below), a weak Les Républicains, and the opposition far-left and far-right who are hell-bent on bringing down the next government no matter what, we have to ask ourselves whether any of this will happen.
Just like the case with Lucie Castets (PS/NFP), Michel Barnier, firstly, has to actually form a government that will survive censure motions by the Assemblée National.
Not only this, but despite claims that Barnier will be a Prime Minister linked to the Far-Right, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella continue to play the game of will-we-won’t-we destroy this government, naturally benefitting from the ambiguity of a potential censure motion to force favourable policies to them.
However, even if it may seem beneficial to them, this may also break down their support and draw more right-wing activists back to the centre-right parties, weakening their future support.
It’s for this reason that many are wary of far-right games being played, and asking themselves if Marine Le Pen isn’t hoping for the government to crash, for more chaos, and for a replayed legislative election in under a year (as constitutionally allowed starting from July 2025)
And Marine Le Pen is already working towards this hypothesis, as reported by Le Monde this morning where she highlights that she is “convinced” there will be a new dissolution shortly.
Meanwhile, the RN are looking for 577 candidates for the next elections, hoping they will be more serious than some of the comical examples we saw this year.
“There are ten months left, and I am convinced that there will be, at the end of these ten months, or in the spring or in the fall, new legislative elections … Let's hope that this mandate is as short as possible” - Marine Le Pen on Sunday 15 September
🥊Open war between Mélenchon and Ruffin
Heading to the left, we now get to see the next stage in the internal warfare between the Mélenchonists, led by far left firebrand who likes to scream that he “is the republic” in the face of police officers doing their jobs, and the dissenters who have been working for several years to get rid of the problematic politician and install a more democratic system in the far-left party.
Enter stage left (or far-right if you ask militants): François Ruffin who was one of those who either left or were kicked out for not being pure enough, and saying that maybe Mélenchon should behave better.
Known for being an editor for a popular left-wing magazine, the deputy from Northern France has always been on a similar line to the LFI, and has regularly been in the news for his outspoken views and for various silly activities.
Such as reading death threats aimed at Emmanuel Macron, live on national television, during the Gillets Jaunes protests.
But what did he do that was so wrong over the years to fall into open war with Mélenchon? Mostly attempting to shift him out of power to open up the field and run for the Presidency himself.
With several disagreements regarding political strategy, which included to criticisms that Mélenchon had abandoned the countryside to the far-right to focus exclusively on young people and the working class in cities.
This received a not-so-small response from Mélenchon that Ruffin was ignoring the racist nature of the far-right vote, which was naturally intended to undermine another big argument that Ruffin uses against La France Insoumise: their use of communitarianism in their campaigns.
Discussing the 2022 legislative elections in a recent publication (Itinéraire. Ma France en entier, pas à moitié), he outlined his shame over what he has described as a “racial campaign” where they targeted “black and arab” citizens and almost exclusively handed them the LFI leaflets, ignoring white citizens.
He also gave some personal anecdotes, claiming that “When [Mélenchon] told me about Hénin, it was on the verge of disgust: 'We didn't understand a word they were saying... They were sweating alcohol from the morning... They smelled bad... Almost all obese...”
And clearly, with Mélenchon putting everything in motion to become president in 2027, this is clearly not acceptable to the far-left firebrand, who is orchestrating a campaign against Ruffin to describe him as a member of the “Fachosphere”, linking him to Eric Zemmour for his points on security, and doing everything he can to quiet someone who is no longer a “Camarade”.
Unfortunately for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, however, he has behaved in such a way over such a long time that he all of this is very believable, and he is going to struggle to overcome his position as the least popular politician in France.
While the whole story is far too long for your weekly dispatch, let me know if you guys would want a deeper dive, and we can work on a longer story, or even a video breaking this down for you all.
But more news on future formats later on 😉
🏃♂️Macron proposes annual National Celebration of sport
With the ongoing post-summer restart, and with the celebration of both the 2024 Paris Olympic Games and the success of our athletes during the event, there is now a renewed politicisation of the results, and an ongoing wish to solidify the positive atmosphere.
One such attempt at doing so has come from French President Emmanuel Macron, who wants to turn the 14th of September into an event like the annual Fete de La Musique, but for sports.
Speaking to Le Parisien this past Friday, he had this to say:
“We need to come together around a popular sports festival that takes place in the streets, schools, and dedicated sports complexes. In our cities, villages, and neighborhoods … I want French people everywhere to take up their sport through demonstrations and competitions, with young and old alike. This will help restart the practice of sport on a daily basis for the start of the school year”
And alongside an annual Fete national de Sport, we’re also seeing attempts by the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, to keep the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower until 2028, in an attempt to keep the Olympic spirit alive.
Alongside your favourite publication’s editor’s wish to keep the Olympic cauldron in the Tuileries, purely because of how gorgeous it looks.
Regardless of your opinion of these two ideas, there is a very smart idea of using the successful Olympic Games, which even convinced the fleeing, screaming Parisians of the joy of being in Paris at the time, to encourage young people to engage in sport.
Notably, there’s an express wish to use this post-JO period to see how the architecture that was put together in all of the regions of France, especially the Parisian banlieues such as Seine-Saint-Denis, to encourage more activities for young people.
And another aspect of this is a cross-party parliamentary commission to study and examine the legacy of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, and to use it to inspire the future of sports in France.
⌛️Barnier misses first deadline for annual budget
On to the next story: just having a Prime Minister doesn’t mean we’re in the clear when it comes to all that is governmental.
As highlighted in the last weekly Dispatch Michel Barnier only has until this past Friday 13 September 2024 to complete the draft state budget for the year 2025 and submit it to the High Council for Public Finances.
Unfortunately, this hasn’t happened, so our new Prime Minister will no longer be able to meet the legal date for presenting the Budgetary text to the Assemblée Nationale and has effectively pushed the process backwards.
While many had hoped for a last-minute piece of information, or a late-afternoon view of white smoke, many were left disappointed, not least of which because the only statement out of Matignon that was “All the teams are working on this subject”.
Now, the reality is that a preliminary budget draft had been put together for Michel Barnier by former PM Gabriel Attal and his team, which was framed primarily as a continuation of the current budget, and was intended both to help Barnier and to avoid any accusations that the previous administration just sat back and relaxed.
But, with the ongoing negotiations to form the first Barnier government, and the ongoing discussions over who will take what position and the various demands that are no doubt being made, this will likely take some time.
But, the big question on all of our minds: is this going to be declared illegal or un-constitutional over the next few weeks?
Only time will tell.
🏦Senator Annick Girardin loses mandate
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So, to finish up the week, a not so fun story regarding Annick Girardin, who until this week was the senator of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, until she got dinged for some campaign shenanigans.
To make a long story short, if you’re a political candidate, there are certain things that you need to make sure you do, such as signing your candidacy papers and handing them in yourself, and opening a bank account specifically for your campaign.
And if you don’t, you will likely find yourself with the same problems as Annick Girardin, the former Minister of Overseas Territories.
The senator from the Radical Party, who was elected only in September 2023, has now had her mandate removed due to her not having opened a campaign account, and is now “ineligible for a period of one year” thanks to a ruling of the Constitutional Council.
Girardin has continued to defend herself, claiming that she had not needed to open one as she had no campaign spending, citing the particularities of campaigning in that territory.
She also highlighted that her financial agent had opened an account in March 2024 after the elections, but this was a little too late.
https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2024/09/13/annick-girardin-perd-son-mandat-de-senatrice-de-saint-pierre-et-miquelon-et-est-declaree-ineligible-pour-un-an_6316145_823448.html?lmd_medium=al&lmd_campaign=envoye-par-appli&lmd_creation=ios&lmd_source=default
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Thanks for the text. Do you agree with comments as in the case of for example Ian Bremmer that Le Pen is still the kingmaker?