It is surely the foreign headline that best sums up the situation in France. “Shit”, title The Economist on a Parisian metro entrance plunged into night, affirming that “France is taking a step towards the unknown”. Because the immense vagueness in which France is now plunged after the vote to censure the Barnier government does not only worry France. In the foreign press too, there is no shortage of analyzes attempting to describe the political “chaos” into which the country continues to sink.
For a large number of newspapers, the first culprit of this instability is not to be looked far: he is at the Élysée, and it is Emmanuel Macron. “The French president has tripped over his own arrogance. With the new elections, he has made France politically incapable of acting. Thus, after Germany, it is the second European ruling power which is now out of the game for a period indeterminate”, says the conservative German newspaper Die Welt in his editorial titled “Emmanuel Macron’s serious error”.
“Macronism is dead. The very year which, in the fantasy of its founder, was to be that of consecration,” writes the Italian daily Corriere della Sierraemphasizing that between the 80th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy, the Olympic Games and the reopening of Notre-Dame, 2024 was to be the year when France was perhaps more scrutinized than ever by the whole world. “The idea of clipping the wings of traditional parties and advancing to the center worked during two presidential elections, but it collapsed in the face of the social crisis and the unpopularity of the president. And for the first time in the “history of the Fifth Republic, the extreme left and the extreme right voted together”, continues the transalpine newspaper.
Economic concern
In this slump, the impotence of Michel Barnier, a well-known political figure within the European Union, is also of concern. For El Paísthe former Brexit negotiator “underestimated the hatred, anger and thirst for revenge which have accumulated in Parliament in recent years”. The center-left Spanish daily continues by highlighting “a straight, Gaullist and deeply pro-European man who could have retired with this memory engraved in the collective memory of Europe.” But who “let himself be won over by his ambition and, who knows, by a certain sense of patriotism, by accepting, perhaps imprudently, the infernal mission entrusted to him by Emmanuel Macron last September: trying to put the irreconcilable back together “.
However, it is above all the economic instability in which France is now plunged which worries many newspapers. “The underlying problem is that most French voters do not want to face economic reality,” insists The Economistfor whom, “like other aging European countries faced with competition from America and Asia, France spends in an unsustainable manner”. In the eyes of the liberal weekly, even if Michel Barnier’s budgetary project “would have made it possible to reduce the deficit by only about one percentage point, this was too much for the irresponsible right and left, who prefer to chase power by fueling popular discontent.
Similar observation on the side of Financial Timeswho believes that “the challenge for Emmanuel Macron is to save the remainder of his second term while protecting what remains of his balance sheet, particularly in the area of the economy, where he has implemented reforms favorable to businesses and tax cuts. The liberal British economic daily insists on the need for the French head of state to move much faster than the two months it took him to achieve the appointment of Michel Barnier. “Any delay risks making it look weak and further worrying financial markets, so French borrowing costs soared last week on fears that the government’s budgetary maneuver would fail.”
“France is limited in its long-term solutions”, also worries the Washington Post. “Its already high tax rate leaves it with limited room to increase revenue and address its budget woes, while deep cuts to public benefits could spark social unrest and favor extreme populists. right and extreme left,” continues the American daily.
A shared responsibility
But Emmanuel Macron is not the only target of the international press. The entire left, by tabling and voting for the motion of censure against the French government, is also targeted by numerous newspapers. For the Belgian newspaper The evening“a narrow passageway exists, however, to avoid a totally ungovernable France. That of a grand coalition between the governing forces, from the right to the left.” But “this would suppose that the Socialist Party breaks away from the Insoumis. Is that so hard?” The center-right Spanish newspaper El Mundo for its part highlights the creation of “a new cordon, unprecedented in France: that of the common vote of the extremes against Macron”, replacing the usual “sanitary cordon” against the far right.
Even if in the eyes ofEl Paísthis situation is above all linked to a government “in the hands of the extreme right of Marine Le Pen and her party, the National Rally”. For the Hispanic newspaper, Michel Barnier will ultimately have “left all the important decisions in the hands of the 143 far-right deputies” and will have “employed from the first minute to woo them with a series of concessions – from the appointment of a extremely conservative and tough Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, at Le Pen’s reception as many times as necessary at Matignon to listen to his requests, or even the announcement of a tough law on immigration.”
“Le Pen’s next target: Emmanuel Macron”
In any case, this situation crystallizes the preponderance of one figure: that of Marine Le Pen. The vast majority of international media highlights the penalty of ineligibility that the leader of the RN risks as a detonator in her party’s decision to censure Michel Barnier and his government. According to the Corriere della Serra“the phase of the ‘responsible leader’, external support of the government, began to end on November 13, the day when the Paris prosecutor’s office requested five years in prison and ineligibility against him in the trial of the assistants parliamentarians.” The Italian newspaper states that “instead of obediently waiting for the verdict scheduled for March 31, Marine Le Pen chose the strategy of chaos and brought down the government while the public debt exceeds three thousand billion and the markets are alarm”.
Der Spiegel title quite clearly: “Le Pen’s next target: Emmanuel Macron”. The German newspaper recalls that “if Macron refuses to resign, he could dissolve the National Assembly, once again. The Constitution, however, allows him to do so no earlier than July. But Marine Le Pen does not have that much time. She is in a hurry”, he adds, underlining the hypothesis of a resignation of Emmanuel Macron and an early presidential election as the alpha and omega of the RN’s strategy.
“France is taken hostage, with no end in sight,” says the president almost resignedly. New York Times. The latter states that “no one knows what will come next. But what is certain is the strength of the far right in France today. Its ambitions and aspirations already dominate the country; today, it has shown that ‘she could bring down a government.’ The center-left American newspaper no longer has any real doubts about the aspirations of Marine Le Pen and her camp. “It is clear that they are no longer content with pushing French politics to the right: they now want power. It may not be long before they obtain it.”