N. Peter Kramer’s Weekly Column
Years and years of lavish spending have brought the French deficit to more than 6 percent; twice as much as permitted by the EU financial rules. French President Emmanuel Macron, after his political party Renaissance (!) had been defeated in the national elections, found Michel Barnier to be brave enough to be Prime Minister. Barnier was not only a French minister and EU Commissioner but also the main EU Brexit negotiator with the UK. His right-wing party, the Republicans, were not impressive in the elections, but nevertheless he became Macron’s pick as PM for the new French government. A government without a majority in Parliament , kept alive only by Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement Nationale abstaining in crucial votes.
But now, just when Barnier is trying to rein in the huge French deficit and finally presenting the budget for 2025, including a boost to taxes on electricity and delayed public benefits such as inflation adjustment for pensions; Le Pen is set to no longer abstain. After meeting Barnier Le Pen said ‘If the budget remains as it is, we will vote for no confidence’. Her reasoning is that again ordinary people are paying the bill.
She also railed against Barnier’s failure to cut spending on the immense French bureaucracy and medical aid for migrants. Together with the anti-Barnier (far-)left opposition of socialists, communists, greens and anti-zionists, there will be a majority which could topple the three-month-old Barnier government before it gets going. In the words of Le Pen, ‘the president of the Republic will have to choose a new prime minister’.
That will men, a French crisis on top of Germany’s political and economic one. The European Central Bank has already warned that the EU could be on the brink of a new debt crisis because of policy uncertainty and low growth. Even without a new President in the Washington White House...
