A parliamentary-governmental crisis is raging in the country. Macron, who started it, has pressed pause and is now waiting for a decision from the new deputies
One more time about the situation in a nutshell. The National Assembly is powerless after the second round of elections, although formally there is a pedestal. But no one has an absolute majority, which means that the president is not obliged to appoint a prime minister from the groups that won a relative majority. Gabriel Attal resigned after the second round.
Why it was necessary to dissolve the previous parliament is unclear even to venerable French political scientists. I can only assume that the president was betting on the scheme that worked as a result, thanks to the majoritarian system of elections in two rounds. If the system had been proportional, in one round, as in England, first-past-the-post, that is, in which it is enough to collect more votes than the others, the prime minister would have long ago been Jordaan Bardela of the National Rally.
In France, the scheme is as follows. In the first round, all those who can and meet the conditions of nomination are put up. For example, the party for the protection of ants from anteaters or raspberries from bears also want to be represented in the Legislature, so why not? But they are not lucky, as a rule.
If a candidate passes in the first round, so be it, if two candidates pass, they compete with each other, but if three or even four candidates come out in the second round, those who doubt their victory remove their candidacies and urge to vote for the best candidate — for anyone but the National Rally of Marine Le Pen. This is called the «republican barrier».
That is, Macron was counting, in my opinion, on the fact that the «barrier» would not let National Rally to an absolute majority. And so it happened, but now the majority, albeit relative, has appeared at the leftist New Popular Front, the presidential party «Renaissance» with comrades came second, «NR» — third. And then the push and pull begins.
But this could have been avoided by simply doing nothing. Not to dissolve the parliament, to keep the government, well, or to appoint a new one, but their own, and to prepare a successor for the next presidential elections in 2027. Now we have to deal with a new cabinet and a new parliament.
Having fought against the Socialists for so many years and now appointing as prime minister a candidate from the New Popular Front — well, that is strange… Especially since it will be very difficult for them to agree on a common candidate, and even more so since the «front» includes the extreme left-wing «La France Insoumise» headed by Jean-Luc Melanchon.
«The president himself called for a barrier against the «unruly», and now he can let them come to the threshold of power, while many of the extreme left passed in the second round just thanks to the barrier of votes of his own party», — ironizes Marine Le Pen.
In addition to disputes about the common candidate, the New Popular Front has another problem: they have practically no margin for maneuvering, since it is already a front in itself, already a coalition of five parties, and, purely arithmetically, they simply have nowhere to lure people to expand. They have shoveled out everything they had.
You don’t even have to look further, if you’re not particularly interested, just assess the situation.
In the camp of the center-right are the Macronian Renaissance, the Republicans — this wing emerged from the Sarcosists — and various right-wingers of all persuasions. Macronius’ kingdom subjects have 163 seats, while the Republicans have 66. Even if they all unite, which would be a miracle in itself, the new coalition quantitatively, of course, will crush the «front», which has 180 seats, but it will still be far from an absolute majority, which is 289 deputies. If this happens, Macron is likely to appoint a prime minister from this camp.
But not all «republicans» want to become related to the «renaissance», and some of the latter are already fleeing from their native party either to independents, or with the purpose of creating something of their own, referring to the fact that between the «NPF» and the presidential camp there is no link.
«We are trying to create a parliamentary group that includes center-right with a social approach and left-wing socialists», claims Stella Dupont, a Macron MP, — «Under this condition, France could finally become governable».
In other words, in this situation, what is most sad is the blanket that everyone is pulling on themselves.
«The Rassemblement National is behaving calmly, or rather, not at all. It has increased the number of deputies in the National Assembly, and is proud of the fact that the most voters voted for them — more than 10 million, while for the «front» — about 6 million, but this is all, again, the cost of the majoritarian system, which allows to erect barriers in the second round».
Their chances for the premiership are not particularly good. We can only assume that at some point they will be asked to support a right-wing coalition, but Marine is unlikely to agree to second positions in exchange for a few ministerial posts.
And behind the government and parliamentary crises, the economic one is already peeking through. The business world has gone into a waiting and watching mode — how Macron will get out of this situation.
To begin with, everyone was frightened by the economic program proposed by the «NPF». Melenchon, for example, proposes to increase the minimum wage to 1,600 euros per month (now it is 1,398). Or to determine by decree the maximum prices for food and essential goods. It is clear that manufacturers do not want to lose their margins and will either fire people, which, we note, is not the goal of the left-wing parties, or move production further away, and if they have stockpiles of goods — to sell them to other countries.
In addition, it is proposed to bring back the wealth tax, introduce 14 categories of taxation for the richest, and add a lot to the inheritance tax provision.
«Heavy tax burdens on individuals and businesses, a sharp upward revision of the minimum wage, automatic indexation of wages to inflation, abandonment of pension reform, freezing prices — all this will only result in France plunging into a deep and long economic crisis» — believes the president of the Patronat — the Movement of French enterprises — Patrick Martin.
Immediately after the results of the first round were announced, international rating agency Standart & Poors Global doubted that France would be able to repay its sovereign debt because it would be unable to deal with its deficit. And if it happens, nothing will prevent the agency from downgrading the country’s credit rating, which was already downgraded to «AA-» two months ago.
Another agency, Moody’s, also in turn predicted that by next year there will most likely be no recovery of the French budget, no liberalization of the labor market, and therefore, most likely, it will also downgrade the country.
This is primarily to reassure investors. So far, French sovereign debt has been considered one of the most reliable in the world. In 2020 it amounted to 34 billion euros, this year it should approach 46 billion, and by 2026 it will reach 63 billion. But in the worst-case scenario, that is, without significant economic reforms, it will end up that interest payments, debt service alone, will become the main item of budget expenditure, and at some point it will become a heavy burden.
Here’s just an example. One of Macron’s favorite brainchildren is the annual «Choose France» international forum for entrepreneurs. It is needed to attract major international corporations to the country, promising them all sorts of benefits such as full assistance from the executive branch and tax breaks to compensate for the high cost of labor in the country. This year’s forum ended with promises to invest a record 15 billion euros in France, but in 2025 it may not even happen at all, if the proposals to impose a tax on everyone and everything see the light of day.
Incidentally, the New Popular Front has used the theories of French economist Gabriel Zucman in its approach to taxation. This is no ordinary guy, but a rising star of economic expertise, despite the fact that he is not yet 40 years old. He teaches at major French economic institutes and even at the famous University of California Berkeley.
Most of Zucman’s work focuses on offshoring. According to his calculations, 7.6 trillion dollars are located there, and three quarters of this money is not declared at all. (Well, that’s the point of offshoring, actually).
He proposes a minimum individual tax of 2 percent per year, on both wealth and income. This measure would allow to collect from 3 thousand billionaires from €200 to 250 billion a year, and from millionaires with hundreds of millions — from €100 to 140 billion.
In his view, the existing income tax does not work well on the richest — as a percentage, they sometimes pay far less than the poor. In 2011, billionaire Jeff Bezos paid no tax at all, while Elon Musk managed to get a child benefit of $8,410 in 2018.
Based on these findings, the New Popular Front proposes to extend the «Zucman tax», as it is now called (it was discussed at the G20 meeting in Brazil and supported by Spain, Belgium, Colombia and South Africa) to French businesses that make money outside the country, i.e. it will be a tax «on everything and everywhere».
It should be said that time is running out, and it would be good to present their candidates to the president, because on July 18, the new parliament must meet for an extraordinary session and choose a chairman and the leaders of the factions. This session will last two weeks, after which the deputies will leave for summer vacation. And no crisis can take that away from the French, as well as a nice lunch or dinner.