The chainsaw was a fake. A scale model, that looked like a plastic toy. But it was enough to strike a chord. On Tuesday, January 21, Eric Ciotti adopted a theatrical approach to get people talking about him, at a time when pollsters are observing a massive disinterest of the French public in politics.
At the House of Latin America in Paris, Ciotti, the former president of the conservative Les Républicains (LR) party, who last year defected to the far right, brandished the fake chainsaw to mimic the sweeping cuts in public spending he dreams of making: €600 billion over five years, the disappearance of a third of state agencies, including the French Biodiversity Office, the Agency for Ecological Transition, the Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority...
The scene delighted the media, providing further proof of the evaporation of the boundaries between politics and entertainment. But Ciotti's stunt also tells us that what seemed unthinkable even six months ago is becoming reality: The brutal methods of Argentina's president, Javier Milei, wielding a chainsaw during his campaign to illustrate massive cuts in public spending, are inspiring some of France's political leaders.
"A wind is blowing. A conservative and liberal revolution is about to take hold," said one of Ciotti's advisers. Paris is in no way comparable to Buenos Aires, whose economic shipwreck has been dragging on for a quarter of a century. But the Argentine leader, who was elected comfortably in November 2023, has some French politicians on the right and far right fantasizing, as does the so-called Department of Government Efficiency run by US billionaire Elon Musk, crusading against the civil service and its mismanagement.
Slimming down public power
"I dreamed it, Musk will do it," wrote Valérie Pécresse, LR's 2022 presidential candidate, on X, back in November 2024. The president of the Paris region, who proposed in her presidential campaign to create an "axe committee" to chop up public spending, has publicly stated her admiration for the far-right libertarian. Her counterpart at the head of the western Pays de la Loire region, Christelle Morançais, who has cut her region's cultural budget by €100 million, also said Musk is "brilliant" (that was before his raised arm).
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