The risk of France finding itself without a government or a budget increased substantially on Monday, December 2, when two motions of no confidence were tabled following Prime Minister Michel Barnier activating Article 49.3 of the Constitution, which allows a bill to be passed without a vote in Parliament. One comes from the left, the other from the far right. If the two combine their votes, as the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) plans to do by voting for the motion tabled by the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) coalition, the government's fate will be sealed. The vote should take place on Wednesday.
This plunge into the unknown is all the more astounding given that the contenders for the presidential election, regardless of their political affiliations, all have a vested interest in quickly addressing the need for improvements in public finances. Playing the wait-and-see game or capitalizing on a crisis in a time of weak economic growth is not the right gamble. If left unaddressed, the budget deficit, which currently exceeds 6% of gross domestic product (GDP), will continue to inflate public debt which already stands at €3.2 trillion and is becoming increasingly costly to finance.
The greater the political uncertainty, the higher the risk becomes, which consequently increases the debt burden a little further, at the risk of limiting the capacity for public action in the coming years. Even before the turbulence of the last few days, the Finance Ministry was forecasting that interest repayments, which mobilized €39 billion of public funds in 2022, would absorb €55 billion in 2025 and €70 billion in 2027.
The rubble of dissolution
The political spiral that is inexorably leading Barnier toward the exit, without giving him the time to undertake anything serious, has been set in motion against a backdrop of a declining economy, a hardening international environment and a weakening Europe. These three factors have not been addressed at all in this tragedy, as if lawmakers were staging a performance to a capacity audience, at the risk of fuelling latent anti-parliamentarian sentiment.
However, nothing was written in advance. If we take a moment to consider the profile of the prime minister appointed on September 5, we can try to sketch a path amidst the rubble of dissolution. Barnier is a man from the center-right with established networks on both the left and the right. At 73 years old, he is well-versed in European negotiations and his experience seems to guard against any hubris.
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