Continued mess in France
There is a sense in the U.S. that many countries in Europe are heading in the wrong direction, countries where the political establishment has a steady grip of power, either by coalitions like in France and Germany, or by an unbalanced constituency-based voting system like Great Britain. In particular in France and the UK, two powerful colonial powers still living in the past, there is discontent with low approval rates for leading politicians and the governments. The U.S. concerns with Europe is primarily related to tariffs and economic agreements and to Ukraine. In both areas, there are different world views, but it feels like the U.S. is coming out on the winning side, at least with the agreed 15% baseline tariff on most EU goods entering the U.S. and other tariff reductions and market access for some U.S. products. Europe has taken advantage of tariff divergence for too long and that will not happen any longer, or at least not under the Trump administration.
As it relates to Ukraine, Europe wants to send troops there, wants all Ukrainian territory to stay intact and wants Ukraine in both the EU and NATO, whereas the U.S. do not want to send troops there, wants to give part of Ukraine to Russia as part of a peace agreement and has no desire to add Ukraine to NATO. The U.S. really don’t care if they would join the EU though. Europe can be seen as unrealistic, self-important, neo-colonial and they are increasingly having vastly different views in most matters compared to the U.S. This is in particular the case in the UK and in France. The UK under an unpopular Labour government is primarily focused on increasing immigration, clamping down on free speech, build out entitlements, focus on climate change and green energy and slowly increasing taxes across the board. They are likely the most anti-Russian country in Europe and continue to undermine any peace efforts by the U.S. as it relates to Ukraine. Maybe France is even worse though. Another French government has collapsed. Rather than allowing French voters to select their next government, President Macron appointed another loyalist to the Hôtel Matignon just hours after receiving the resignation of Prime Minister François Bayrou.
The main fear is that the populist National Rally would win and that seems to be the scariest scenario for the French establishment. Instead, Sébastien Lecornu has been appointed as the next prime minister of France, the third such appointment by President Macron over the past year. Previously a member of the center-right Les Républicains, the neo-liberal Lecornu joined Macron’s Renaissance faction in 2017 and has served in the cabinet of multiple prime ministers. He will become the fifth prime minister since President Macron was reelected for a second five-year term in 2022.
Lecornu mentioned that his focus will be “on the defense of the independence and power, and political and institutional stability for the unity of the country”. It is unclear what that means as it seems to be political gibberish. The prompt appointment of Lecornu, less than 24 hours after the National Assembly voted to oust fellow Macron loyalist Bayrou from power, comes despite Renaissance parliamentary leader and former PM Gabriel Attal advocating for the president to appoint a mediator to negotiate between the deeply divided parties in the French parliament to find a consensus candidate to implement an agreed-upon budget.
Lecornu faces an uphill battle, with his predecessors Bayrou and Barnier both failing to find a compromise to balance France’s books, given the three-way split in the National Assembly resulting from President Macron’s election pact with the far-left New Popular Front during the second round of last year’s legislative elections to keep Marine Le Pen’s National Rally from taking control of the parliament.
Le Pen’s populist faction has advocated for Macron to return to the voters with a new election to break the logjam in the National Assembly with fresh legislative elections. However, it appears that the embattled president is hesitant to face voters, given his dwindling levels of support. Nevertheless, Le Pen still predicted that elections are forthcoming and that her deputy, Jordan Bardella, will become the next Prime Minister of France. This development is not entirely unlikely. Bardella, the charismatic 29-year-old president of the National Rally, added: “Emmanuel Macron’s motto: you don’t change a losing team. How could a loyal supporter of the President break with the policy he has been pursuing for eight years?
Meanwhile, some on the political far-left, enraged that Macron did not select a prime minister from their ranks to replace Bayrou, are calling for mass demonstrations against the new government. Conveniently for the left, large-scale labor union strikes across France were already scheduled, potentially laying the groundwork for widespread unrest.
France has been a mess since the revolution and is more or less dysfunctional politically. The key mission of the rulers is to stay in power and preventing National Rally from a role in running the country. The result is further polarization potentially resulting in the two main parties being the far-right and the far-left. Expect more turbulence in France and a new election in the near future. Internationally, France still sees itself as an important global player. In reality though, France is a neo-colonial country with an exploitation mindset and France cannot be trusted in global affairs. The U.S. openly laughs at France for its weak government structure, its limited global power and, most of all, its delusional sense of grandeur and importance.