Government crisis, hypertrophic public debt, middle classes on war footing, presidency of the Republic in the balance, probable forced cohabitation, crisis of institutions, risk of early elections: France, “sick of Europe”, is in the perfect storm. François Bayrou, at the head of a Centrist Cingelato Centrist in the pincer of the right of Marine Le Pen and the left of Jean-Luc Melenchon, took note of the distrust, much wider than expected, of the deputies of the National Assembly. This morning he went to the Elysée to resign in the hands of the Head of State Emmanuel Macron, increasingly Zoppa duck, who will take note and above all take time to appoint a successor (the first rumors speak of Sébastien Lecornu, current defense minister).
Bayrou had made a speech “tears, sweat and blood”, in the name of realism, playing his last card. The knots had now reached the comb. The reduction of debt, repeated, is a question of “vital urgency”, taking on historical turning tones. The French model for the “go” centrist premier in the face of “immense” challenges such as the need to rebalance the commercial balance, between what France exports and imported assets (Trump’s duties do not help in this process).
The French tragedy, headlines The point on the cover. A drama that has many causes: the decrease in production, a school that does not work and does not guarantee everyone a good formation, an accommodation crisis, the climatic emergency (the “Canicule”, in a widely agricultural country such as France this year has devastated the crops), the imbalances between the big cities and the “rural deserts”. France, Bayrou said, is a magnificent cathedral to be reconstructed. Today he risks the fire. Like Notre Dame. All in the framework of an uncontrolled public expenditure, unable to manage debt (over 3,400 billion euros with 70 billion per year of expenditure for interest, the pread increases and it is not known how the markets will react).
The plan that dropped the government provided for draconian cuts to the costs of the ministries, to the school and to health and many facilitations. A front attack on welfare, one of the best in the world, always pride of the French. And of course an increase in retirement age, which had already infuriated the French insurgents in the squares with the yellow vests.
Now a long sequence of crucial appointments awaits the country. Anger risks exploding in manifestations threatened a little everywhere. The extreme right wants the early elections while the left would also want the resignation of the President of the Republic, increasingly isolated and weakened. But the powers of semipresidenticism are such that it will be difficult for the Elisee to not play other cards. By appointing a premier from a coalition other than the presidential one, for example, establishing a “cohabitation” regime (already happened with Mitterand and Chirac, Mitterand and Balladur and at the times of Chirac and Jospin but the waters were much more peaceful). Therefore the economic crisis, which has become a political crisis, risks becoming also institutional, as in the times of the fifth Republic of De Gaulle, now unable to resist the blows inflicted by the new extremisms that the country is launched, now politically shattered. The problem, however, is not only institutional. The renovation of the political landscape carried out by Macron eight years ago, when the alternation between socialists and republicans broke through, imposing its centrist movement “En Marche”, left the prisoner country of a tripolar division. On the right dominates the party of Le Pen, on the left the radical forces, in the center a government without a solid majority (which the polls give to 14 percent). A situation that paralyzes the national assembly, unable to build compromises on the German or Italian model. But the central node remains social spending. The French perceive any decrease in benefits as an intolerable threat, threatening to reduce the country to fire and fire, as in 2023, when Macron raised the retirement age from 62 to 64 years. All that remains is to hold back your breath in front of what will happen in the next few days. Bayrou had to even succumb to his project to cut two days of national festival. But the truth is that in France the party is really over.
