France is on the verge of government collapse as lawmakers – led by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) – fail to agree with former Brexit negotiator and political grandee, Michel Barnier, over a proposed budget endorsed by the EU.
Prime Minister Barnier was ostensibly brought in by President Emmanuel Macron to be the grown up in the room. The new PM also had the broad backing of RN, not least for his newfound tough rhetoric over mass immigration.
Now, however, RN and the Left have taken issue with a proposed €40 billion in budget cuts and €20 billion in tax hikes, both of which are designed to reduce France’s eye-watering deficit of just over 6 per cent of economic output, double the percent set as a target by Brussels.
Barnier could force the measure through as the year winds down, but lawmakers have their own tools to counter the PM, not least a motion of no confidence. Little wonder financial markets have reacted badly to the ongoing saga.
Underlying this is the possibility of the anti-EU nationalist Le Pen becoming the country’s next President. Despite RN doing slightly worse in recent legislative elections than initially predicted, Le Pen leads on both first and second round polling for the 2027 presidential election.
This includes a nearly two-to-one lead over Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the French Left. Yet so volatile has French politics become that Le Pen also faces the prospect of jail and being barred from public office following a trial over alleged embezzlement of EU funds.
The judgement won’t come through until March, while Le Pen’s supporters have derided the entire process as “lawfare” designed to upend the Eurosceptic’s chances at the ballot box.
Things could turn either way, but the backdrop of the recent budget saga must be seen in the context of Le Pen’s aspirations, Macron’s longstanding failings, and the febrile condition of French politics itself.
At issue right now – so far as Le Pen is concerned – are proposed tax hikes on electricity and a proposed delay to the inflation adjustment for pensions, as well as a failure to cut medical aid for migrants.
Beneath this however is her bid to become the head of state of a country which has effectively co-led the EU since day one, and hosts both the largest non-white and Muslim populations in Europe.
Unwinding – if not completely ending – France’s relationship with Brussels, as well as navigating the country’s complex multi-racial and multi-religious makeup in that context would be a Herculean task.
Yet can the day of reckoning be put off much longer, especially when polling suggests Le Pen’s vision of France, one which unwinds so much of the legacy of the last half-century, is becoming so popular nationwide?
RN’s heady mix of Right wing socio-cultural policies alongside more Left-leaning economic ones follows a pattern seen among other successful nationalist leaders and parties like Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Law and Justice in Poland, and even to some extent Donald Trump’s MAGA movement with its eye on protecting the American working class.
Nigel Farage and Reform UK should take note that patriotic voters in Western countries today are after much more than mere Thatcherism redux.
For the EU, the Barnier saga comes at a pivotal moment, with pro-EU centrist Donald Tusk proving to be a letdown as Polish PM, with Romania on the brink of electing a nationalist and Eurosceptic President, with Britain only half-heartedly getting back into bed with the bloc, with Orbán an ongoing thorn in the EU’s side, and with the prospect of Donald Trump impacting everything from NATO to the pan-EU economy.
The potential collapse of the Barnier government – and with it his deficit-busting plan – would be the cherry on the cake, preparing the ground perhaps for the mother of all crises so far as Brussels is concerned: a Le Pen presidency in the heart of the EU. A messy compromise may yet be found but tensions remain red hot under the surface.