The political temperature in France has been rising for more than a decade. It has now reached boiling point. President Emmanuel Macron’s latest attempt to form a government compatible with his self-assured “jupitérien” vision has produced, as many expected, a resounding failure. 

Macron’s many failures have been a recurring pattern since les gilets jaunes (“yellow vests”) movement erupted in France starting the winter of 2018. Only the pandemic stopped the movement from weakening the president further. Now, all presidential authority has evaporated thanks to a full-blown constitutional crisis.

What is going on?

Many of our readers have been following the US elections and have not paid France as much attention. So, let us lay out the bare bones of France’s crisis.

In June, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement national (RN) emerged as the largest party in the French elections for the European Parliament. In response, Macron called a snap parliamentary election to break the far-right fever gripping the country. In the first round of parliamentary elections, RN got 33.21% of the votes, beating Nouveau Front populaire (NFP) and Ensemble, which got 28.21% and 21.28%, respectively. In the second round, the left coalition NFP and Macron’s centrist grouping Ensemble combined to push the far-right RN into third place. NFP unexpectedly ended up with 180 out of 577 seats in the National Assembly. Ensemble managed to come in second and retain 159 seats. RN increased its numbers to 142 seats but was no longer the leading party in parliament. In this hung parliament, no one party could form a government and the French hosted the Paris Olympics whilst in political limbo.

After the Olympic summer, Macron appointed Michel Barnier prime minister on September 5. This was a rather surprising choice. Les Républicains (The Republicans), the traditional center-right party, got 5.41% of the votes and won 39 seats. Barnier was not among those elected to the National Assembly. In fact, in the lead-up to the 2022 presidential election, Barnier ran as a primary candidate for his party but was eliminated in the first round, getting only 23.9% of the vote. 

Like almost all French politicians, Barnier graduated from one of France’s elitist grandes écoles, the highly selective institutions that train the crème de la crème of France. Though not a household name, he is a highly competent public servant who held many important positions in Paris and Brussels. Like Macron, he is very much part of the French elite that governs the country and plays a big role in the EU. It is also now a highly discredited and increasingly despised elite.

Barnier tried to pass a long overdue budget but met strong opposition in parliament. Eventually, he used an executive order, Article 49.3, to pass the budget on December 2. Two days later, France’s far-right and left-wing lawmakers joined together to vote a no-confidence motion through. RN required a permanent consultative role in budget planning, increased spending in areas benefiting French citizens directly and opposed Barnie’s tax increases. Both RN and NFP opposed austerity measures, while NFP supported higher taxes on the wealthy. Their contrasting but complementary populist themes made inevitable their convergent choice to vote out Barnier. Now, France is about to enter 2025 with no government and no budget.

Three points are of note after the no-confidence vote:

1. As per the constitution, Barnier now has to resign.

2. Macron cannot call yet another election until June because the constitution sets out a 12-month waiting period after a snap election.

3. Macron is unlikely to find anyone acceptable to a majority of legislators in the National Assembly to succeed Barnier as prime minister.

Barnier was trying to improve France’s fiscal position by cutting the deficit from 6.1% to 5.0% of the GDP. France is growing by barely 1.0% a year and its debt-to-GDP ratio now stands at 110%. Therefore, Barnier proposed €40 billion ($42 billion) in spending cuts and €20 billion ($21 billion) in tax rises. Neither the NFP nor the RN found Barnier’s proposals acceptable. His effort to push through this budget through an executive order, overriding democratic process, led to his fall.

These are interesting times for France. Yesterday, the country experienced its first successful no-confidence vote since Georges Pompidou’s government fell in 1962. At that time, none other than Charles de Gaulle was president. He had inaugurated the Fifth Republic in 1958 and had immense political authority. Macron is literally and metaphorically a midget by comparison and his Sancho Panza Barnier has achieved the dubious distinction of becoming the shortest-serving prime minister in the Fifth Republic.

In the past, French political parties went through protracted bouts of arm-wrestling to agree upon a budget. With the implosion of the traditional center-right and center-left parties and the drift to populist anti-establishment positions, France’s legislators are now unable to arrive at a compromise. Instead, they are engaging in a bruising brawl. Fists are flying and not only has Barnier been knocked down but the French political system is on the floor.

On Sunday, Le Monde published a long, detailed article full of fascinating quotes from diverse members of the political class, both friendly and unfriendly to Macron. It bore the title: “Since the dissolution, the slow twilight of Emmanuel Macron.” Many are wondering whether he intends, in the words of Dylan Thomas, to “go gentle into that good night” or “rage, rage against the dying light.”

This is not the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic that a president has felt endangered. Far more spectacular were the events in 1968 — celebrated in France as mai soixante-huit —  when the world and the French population wondered whether they weren’t witnessing a second revolution à la 1789. Students armed with anti-authoritarian slogans such as “It’s forbidden to forbid” or, more poetically, “Sous les pavés, la plage” (“under the paving-stones the beach”) dug up these very paving-stones and threw them at the riot police. An estimated 500,000 people took to the streets and de Gaulle fled the Élysée Palace. A year later, the grand old general resigned but the Fifth Republic survived.

History is rhyming but not repeating itself

The difference between then and now is twofold. First, de Gaulle had immense stature as the leader of the French Resistance during World War II. Even though the war hero secretly fled to West Germany during the most fraught days of the unrest, he still commanded authority in much of the country. Upon his return to France, de Gaulle gave a resounding speech and called for a snap election. About 800,000 supporters of various ages marched through Paris and Gaullists won 353 of 486 seats while the Socialists and Communists managed only 57 and 34, respectively.

Second, France has now entered the brave new world where traditional politics of the left and right is dead and buried six feet under. In 1968, the Gaullists and the left offered two clear visions for France. Both had seasoned professionals and well-structured political parties. At the same time, there was a solid centrist bloc that could work with both sides of the political divide. Voters had a clear choice between the left and the right and, thanks to de Gaulle’s actions, the disorder of May became the new order of June.

The crusty old general succeeded in saving the constitution because he literally embodied it. In 1958, he had created the Fifth Republic after the collapse of the postwar Fourth Republic. Yet when he called for a constitutional referendum a year later, de Gaulle lost and duly resigned. Pompidou, his Gaullist prime minister, took over and the Fifth Republic endured.

Macron has consistently taken inspiration from de Gaulle. But to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen in his 1988 vice-presidential debate with Dan Quayle, the appropriate response to the current president’s hubris would be: “Manu, you are not le Grand Charles.” The essayist Alain Minc, quoted in the Le Monde article, offered the most credible explanation of Macron’s personality in a discussion he claims to have had with Nicolas Sarkozy. Apparently, Minc told Sarkozy, “You’re egocentric. He [Macron] is a narcissist. Egocentrics need others. Narcissus is alone.” Note that a friend of the two authors who was a classmate of Macron at Sciences Po called Macron a pervers narcissique (pervert narcissist).

Even though Macron managed to cobble together a disparate group of followers and call them a party — initially, La République en Marche and later Renaissance — he has never succeeded. Monsieur Jupiter fails to understand that, by their very nature, political parties include a number of disparate interests who somehow combine to work together on multiple levels of policy and organization. All successful parties have some mechanism to make collective decisions.

In 2018, Fox News reporter Chris Wallace asked Macron what he liked most about being president, Macron replied that he likes making decisions. Note not solving problems, not negotiating complex issues, not even governing. Making decisions. Macron then defended himself against the accusation of being authoritarian, arguing that being “aware of all the consequences of your decisions and thinking that you have to stick to your decisions to deliver when it’s for the good of your country is not the same as being authoritarian or arrogant.”

Some credit Macron for being a political genius but forget that he benefited from spectacular good fortune in 2017. The blocs on the left and the right had lost their sense of direction. They had failed to produce political personalities whom the French saw leaders. Then, Macron was a young unknown. He was a recent addition to then-President François Hollande’s administration. Mostly as a result of Hollande’s political amateurism, he rose from the technocratic ranks to become finance minister. In the past, this important post was usually reserved for political personalities. That honor ennobled Macron in the eyes of the public and at the same time inebriated him. Hollande’s performance as president weakened the Socialist Party and Macron cannily played the card of continuity while betraying the party of his benefactor.

Elected in 2012, Hollande was the first president in the history of the Fifth Republic to visibly lack the force of personality and political muscle the French associate with the office of president. De Gaulle, François Mitterand and Jacques Chirac — each with his contrasting style — successfully embodied the image of Fifth Republic president. Sarkozy, despite his two discrediting epithets “bling-bling” and “Sarko l’Américain” (Sarko the American), thrived, at least for a while. He lived on his previously constructed image as a “tough guy” when he was Chirac’s minister of the interior.

Note that Sarkozy’s American reputation helped him initially. Even though the French constantly criticize Americans, they secretly admire everything American. This includes bling-bling and celebrity culture. Yet this appeal has its limits. Sarkozy ended up as a one-term wonder because they do not appreciate bling-bling in their leaders. Hence, the tough guy lost the 2012 election to Hollande, who had promised to be “normal.” In 2017, Macron promised a chimeric return to a Gaullist past but the callow president lacked judgment, experience and substance.

Macron survived a flurry of punches in the first seven years of his reign as jupitérien president for a very simple reason: His opponent in the final round of the 2017 and 2022 elections was the “unrepublican” Marine Le Pen. The notion of “republican” for the traditional political class has long been applied to anyone who fits into the traditional mold of a politician belonging to a party not too extreme to deserve banishment from polite company. Marine’s father, Jean-Marie, was the portrait of someone who was existentially unacceptable.

It has long been noted that the unifier of the left, François Mitterand, was the first to exploit the idea of using Jean-Marie as the ideal foil to create havoc on the right. It was a successful strategy but it proved risky in the long run. When Jean-Marie became a spent force, his daughter Marine took center stage as a softer and subtler version of her father. It wasn’t exactly King Lear and Cordelia, and there was far less drama to it. But a dose of cultural conflict between the two gave Marine the credibility Jean-Marie never had.

All this drama, from de Gaulle to Macron and Le Pen, has ended up producing the constitutional crisis playing out today. The founders of the Fifth Republic — de Gaulle and his cronies — crafted a document designed to avoid what is now unfolding before our eyes. They created a parliamentary system dominated by the spectre of presidential authority. The French presidency has a monarchic tinge to it because it was designed to prevent the instability that often afflicts parliamentary regimes of which we have seen two examples recently in Europe. Post-Brexit United Kingdom proved so unstable that Conservatives devoured their own prime ministers. In Germany, the traffic light coalition of Socialists, Liberals and Greens has just collapsed. Ironically, the Fifth Republic that set out to avoid parliamentary instability might itself be able to collapse.

In some ways, the current situation is very French and a product of a political culture that developed as a result of the French Revolution in 1789. France has been politically unstable since that fateful day when a group of rebellious citizens stormed the Bastille. Unlike the United States with its quasi-religious faith in its 1787 constitution that many still see as sacred writ, France has been through several successive constitutions. Each time, the French rewrote the basic rules of the state. France has experienced the First Republic, the First Empire, the Restoration, the liberal monarchy, the Second Republic, the Second Empire, the Third Republic, the Vichy regime, the Fourth Republic and then the Fifth Republic. Hence, the French do not see the Fifth Republic as magical, mystical, spiritual or even literary. To their eyes, it does not deserve immortality. The traditional political establishment, and Macron above all, disagree.

The rise and fall of Macron and the Fifth Republic

As noted above, the Fifth Republic was a stable two-bloc system for decades. However, the last 16 years destabilized the reigning equilibrium. Like many other first world countries, France was unable to deal with the 2007–2008 global financial crisis. Sarkozy, “l’Américain,” elected in 2007, as the global crisis was developing, took the right in an Atlanticist direction, alienating the proud nationalists who had inherited de Gaulle’s stubborn embrace of national autonomy and resistance to the US. Hollande, inspired by the examples of US President Bill Clinton and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, succeeded Sarkozy and dreamt — in the age of high tech and Silicon Valley prestige — of running a rational, technocratic regime. He failed to serve the middle or working classes and his party came to be perceived as champagne or caviar socialists.

Clinton and Blair’s Third Way tried to reconcile center-right and center-left politics by synthesizing economically liberal and socially democratic policies but ended up leaving the working class behind. The British Labour Party has only returned to power this year after 14 years of political wilderness. In the US, Democrats under Kamala Harris have just been defeated roundly by Donald Trump. Her defeat is much worse than Hillary Clinton’s who had the consolation of winning the popular vote.

By 2016, Hollande’s champagne socialism had made him unpopular with voters. Unlike Sarkozy, he did not stand for re-election. In the ensuing primary, Benoît Hamon triumphed. He was the most traditionally working class but, by now, Hollande’s Socialist Party was dominated by centrists. They rallied behind Macron who emerged as a third party candidate.

At that time, most people did not give Macron much of a chance. François Fillon, a former prime minister, was the frontrunner who was expected to waltz to victory. He possessed all the traits of a traditional leader. He was the establishment figure of the center-right but an embezzlement scandal involving his wife torpedoed his prospects.

This miraculous break in the clouds allowed Macron to emerge as a fresh young face promising a break from the past. Hamon and Fillon fell by the wayside and Macron and Le Pen squared off for the second round of the 2017 presidential election. Her party’s sulfurous, unrepublican reputation paved the way for Macron’s victory. In 2022, he again won because his opponent was Le Pen and because the Covid-19 pandemic gave him a break from les gilets jaunes. In the snap elections this year, his party only came third. The voters have sent him a clear message: “You may be president for another three years, but we no longer trust you to govern.”

As stated earlier, Macron managed to win two elections but he has failed to create a real political party. It has no truly political or even ideological identity. Ensemble is little more than a coterie of lukewarm loyalists bound for the advancement of their political careers to a talented but narcissistic leader. This leader has chosen technocrats with no political stature as his prime ministers. Édouard Philippe, Jean Castex, Élisabeth Borne, Gabriel Attal and now Barnier are not exactly household names in France. Macron clings to the fantasy that the weaker his prime ministers are, the stronger he will be. This has clearly backfired and led to an eminently avoidable crisis.

The constitution obliges Macron to find a new prime minister. The next elections cannot be held until July. Yet there is no personality on the left or in the center with enough authority to who can win the confidence even of a ragtag majority in a fragmented parliament. 

The urgent issue today, a day after the vote of no confidence, is to confirm a budget for 2025. But with no government to push a budget through, uncertainty reigns. With Trump waiting in the wings to take charge of the West Wing, uncertainty will only amplify. He is threatening 10–20% tariffs on European imports. So, France faces a risk of lower export earnings from the US market. It along with other European countries also faces the added risk of Chinese dumping because the Trump administration is planning to hit China with massive tariffs.

The war in Ukraine and the Middle East also cast a dark shadow on France. With no budget yet in either France or Germany, Europe can no longer back Ukraine. In any case, Trump has clearly signaled that he will be following a very different policy to US President Joe Biden in Ukraine. After tying himself closely to Biden, Macron will have to sing a different tune. Lebanon and Syria are former French colonies. They are in trouble and could end up in bigger trouble soon. This will cause Macron headaches.

In a nutshell though, the lack of a government and a budget poses grave risks for the economy. Fair Observer’s Editor-at-Large Alex Gloy points out that yields on French ten-year bonds have surpassed those on their Greek counterparts and the country’s credit rating could be downgraded soon. Bankruptcies have been soaring and the French stock market performance has severely lagged those of other countries. Since the peak in 2007, the French stock market index CAC-40 is up a mere 18% while the German Dax has increased by 148% and the US S&P 500 by 286%. 

Furthermore, like Germany, France has been hit hard by soaring energy prices, high inflation and rising interest rates after the war in Ukraine started in February 2022. There is no political consensus as to how to pay for current and future spending. Like many times in the past, France is now in a full-blown political and economic crisis. Macron’s jupitérien reign is ending in an unmitigated disaster and the Fifth Republic might not survive for too long.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.