PM Francois Bayrou on borrowed time: what next for France?

Charles De Gaulle once joked that it was virtually impossible to govern a country “which had 246 different types of cheese”. The second Macron administration has certainly vindicated him.

The legislative elections that followed the presidential saw Macron’s En Marche become the first governing party to fail to obtain a parliamentary majority since the synchronisation of the legislative elections with the presidential one. Things have only got worse for the French president. After receiving another humbling defeat in the European parliamentary elections, Macron called a surprise snap election which saw his party lose a further 86 seats.

France has now been at a stand-still for over a year. The French assembly is now composed of three quasi-equal blocs: Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s New Popular Front, the government’s central bloc and Marine Le Pen’s right-wing populist alliance. Consequently, legislation has been near-enough impossible to pass with the government resorting to the use of article 49.3 of the French constitution (granting the government the power to bypass parliament) on a record number of occasions.

Governments have also been equally difficult to maintain. Emmanuel Macron is already on his sixth Prime Minister, a rarity for the fifth republic whose constitution grants far-reaching powers to its executive branch in order to maintain strong and stable governments. To put this into perspective, Nicholas Sarkozy only had one Prime Minister for his entire tenure.

The EU’s former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier was the latest Prime Minister to fall after he lost a no-confidence vote, having used article 49.3 to force through his budget that had been voted down in the assembly.

Since the arrival of Francois Bayrou at the helm, parliament has been turned into a circus. The centrist Prime Minister has now survived a staggering eight no-confidence votes. The plethora of conflicting ideologies in the French assembly has seemingly rendered the task of forming a majority a rather difficult one for the opposition.

The first no-confidence vote, put forward by the far-left LFI over Bayrou’s pension reforms, was supported by the far-right but rejected by their own coalition partners the centre-left socialists. When questioned, party leader Olivier Faure claimed he had acquired some concessions, such as scrapping the proposal to cut back on 20,000 civil service jobs. Furthermore, the pro-EU socialists were placed under immense pressure from Brussels who were withholding NextGenerationEU funding until the country had passed its budget.

Just days after voting down the no-confidence vote that would have brought down the Bayrou government, the Socialists unashamedly tabled their own motion of no-confidence. Why? Because they believed that the Prime Minister’s language around “migrants submerging France” had gone too far. This motion failed due to the National Rally’s abstention.

The most recent no-confidence vote was held as recent as this month and once again failed because of the National Rally’s abstention. Many have begun to question the party’s inaction towards the Bayrou government, including the party’s decision to abstain from a motion of no-confidence in the government after being embroiled in a scandal involving the Prime Minister allegedly failing to act on historic abuse in the Catholic boarding school of his constituency.

The non-interventionism of the National Rally is, no doubt, a consequence of Marine Le Pen’s sentencing. Indeed, the leader of France’s far-right party received a four-year suspended prison sentence and an immediate five-year ban from running for public office for her role in the party’s embezzlement of EU funds. Whilst Le Pen may be guilty, the sentence itself is certainly unprecedented. In fact, Prime Minister Bayrou was himself recently acquitted of embezzlement of EU funds that amounted to a greater sum than that of the RN.

A year has now passed since the last French legislative elections and, under the French constitution, President Macron has the ability to dissolve parliament and call new elections. And with Le Pen now barred from running for office until her appeal in 2026, there is now a real possibility that the National Rally’s leader forfeits her parliamentary seat. Hence the party’s hesitance in catalysing the collapse of another government.

The National Rally’s “kick the can down the road” tactics have been tested to their limits by Bayrou’s recent “moment of truth” budget. The scrapping of two bank holidays, limiting tax breaks for the wealthy and slashing civil service jobs, were just some of the proposals from Bayrou’s budget. One must note that the Barnier government was toppled for a far-less austere budget. The National Rally simply cannot remain idle for much longer – their electorate expect action!

If a fresh no-confidence vote were to be tabled, it seems inevitable that the Bayrou government would lose. Polymarket now gives Bayrou just a 39% chance of surviving the year. So, what next for France?

Emmanuel Macron would be left with three choices. The first would be to appoint a new prime minister. This now seems a near-impossible task. A left-wing appointment would be blocked by the right, whilst a right-wing appointment would be blocked by the left. Meanwhile, the centre-right and centrist appointments have already failed.

As mentioned above, Macron could dissolve parliament and call a fresh set of elections. This, most likely, would engender another increase in the far-right’s seat share but at the cost of losing Marine Le Pen in parliament. Consequently, Jordan Bardella would become the National Rally’s presidential candidate. Currently polling below Marine Le Pen’s average, Bardella has taken the party in a more traditional moderate-right direction. If we are to learn anything from Zemmour’s 2022 campaign, however, it’s that appealing to the so-called “patriotic bourgeoisie” doesn’t work. The anti-immigration rhetoric was not enough to win an election when all ‘the Z’ had to offer was a carbon copy of Macron’s austerity economics.

Some commentators have accused Macron of pursuing a scorched earth policy. One can justify such claims simply by Macron’s private confession of wanting to “throw a grenade at the French”, after having called the shock snap election. Political scientist Pierre Yves Rougeyron has charged the president with wanting to render France ungovernable from the inside so that it may be governed from the outside i.e. Brussels. Historian Emmanuel Todd, meanwhile, believes the central bloc is prepared to sacrifice Matignon (the prime ministership) in order to save the Elysée Palace (the presidency). In other words, they wish to call new elections that gives the far-right a relative majority – handing it the impossible task of governing an uncompromising parliament, dealing with the inevitable far-left protests in the streets, and cleaning up the economic mess left behind. The double-point lead in the polls that the National Rally currently enjoys would take a hit whilst two years of turbulence would be enough time for the central bloc to rally around their “adults back in the room” candidate – the saviour from populist anarchy.

The final option for Macron would be to resign himself. Knowing his personality and remaining ambitions in foreign policy, however, this seems unlikely.

With the next presidential election looming, the knives are beginning to sharpen. Allying oneself to macron at this time is the political equivalent of flying too close to the sun. According to the World Of Statistics, Macron now has the highest disapproval rating of any world leader. Anyone with presidential ambitions is distancing themselves from him. His former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal made his frustrations very clear during the previous legislative elections whilst the current interior minister Bruno Retailleau has recently spoken to the media about the death of ‘Macronism’ as an ideology.

Macron has entered lame duck territory. His sixth Prime Minister is on borrowed time. But will we be treated to another set of elections or will the president play with the cards he’s been dealt? Only time will tell…

Tips:

- Bayrou out as French PM in 2025? – Yes 4/6 (Polymarket)

- If you think the National Rally will win, back Bardella over Le Pen at 3/1 (Ladbrokes)

- French presidential value longshot: Gabriel Attal (12/1) (Ladbrokes)

Written by Julien (Election analyst)