France is in the midst of its most serious political crisis in decades. And there doesn’t seem to be a quick way out.
After less than four weeks in office, Prime Minister S in frustration. Even before he had a chance to form a government, the split between the left and right blocs in parliament proved too much for him.
With Lecornu, President has now lost his third head of government in the space of a year, making it impossible to pass the budget. Urgently needed savings are being postponed once again. France’s debt and budget deficit are about twice as large as allowed under EU stability rules.
Financial markets are becoming nervous and higher risk premiums are being charged on government bonds issued by France, the EU’s second-largest economy after Germany.
Macron has been weakened
Nevertheless, the federal government in Berlin has remained calm. “I would caution against alarmism at this point,” wrote Gunther Krichbaum, Minister of State for Europe at the Federal Foreign Office, to DW. “The German-French friendship remains a reliable constant in Europe. Close consultations between politicians and authorities in both countries are taking place at all levels of governmental cooperation; the current situation does not change that.”
Foreign policy in France is entirely in the hands of the president. And Macron’s position is not at stake in the current government crisis, at least not directly.
Macron’s term of office does not end until 2027 and he intends to see it through. However, his hand has been severely weakened. Not only are the left-wing and right-wing opposition parties calling for his resignation, but now so is Edouard Philippe, one of his former heads of government.
And according to a poll conducted at the end of September, 78% of French respondents consider Macron to be a poor president.
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With the ongoing crisis in his own country, Macron’s influence on the international stage is also waning. Macron has repeatedly called for a sovereign Europe that can confidently stand up to both Putin in Russia and Trump in the US. Even if he does not have a parliamentary majority or a government and even if France’s budget continues to spiral out of control, Seidendorf points out that, “France nevertheless remains an extremely important player at the European level.”
Macron and German Chancellor have begun to rekindle their close partnership, which was particularly important to the German chancellor after his election, given that relations between Macron and Merz’s predecessor, SPD chancellor Olaf Scholz, had not been particularly smooth.
At a recent in Toulon, both governments drew up a lengthy list of joint projects, ranging from closer coordination on energy policy and the development of artificial intelligence to better financing options for start-ups. While these plans have not changed, Stefan Seidendorf notes that, “projects that are especially dependent on political support or political pressure are now, of course, lacking this political support.”
This applies, for example, to the plans for a , which has recently encountered major problems.
Given France’s high national debt of around 115% of gross domestic product and a deficit of 5.8%, the country will be forced to drastically cut public spending in the coming year, regardless of which government is in power.
Nevertheless, Krichbaum from the Foreign Office does not see this as a problem for the eurozone. “France is a robust country. Unlike ours, the French economy has actually grown over the last three years. And the eurozone as a whole is more resilient than ever, thanks to the instruments developed in recent years.”
In Germany, the debt and deficit figures are still looking much better, but new, significant debts mean that Germany will have to pay much higher interest rates in the future. Chancellor Merz is already preparing the population for painful savings and “to work more.”
The rise of the far right
Pressure from the far right is increasing in both countries. In a recent poll in France asking respondents who they would like to see as the next president, two members of the right-wing populist Rassemblement National (RN) party came out on top: faction leader and party leader Jordan Bardella, even though Le Pen has been banned from political office for five years following a court ruling for embezzlement of public funds. In Seidendorf’s view, a future president from the RN is “difficult to imagine,” but “no longer entirely out of the question.”
Germany has a different political system. Here, it is not the president who is at the center of political activity, but the chancellor, who usually belongs to the strongest party in the Bundestag. Currently, it is inconceivable that Germany’s right-wing extremist party, , could appoint a chancellor because no other party in the Bundestag is willing to work with them. However, there have been several recent polls in which the AfD was just ahead of Friedrich Merz’s center-right .
Seidendorf from the German-French Institute describes the political dilemma in both countries as follows: “Part of the perceived problem in France is that the two extreme left and right blocs are making radical proposals, but don’t have any responsibility, and at the same time, the center, which is taking on governmental responsibility, has shrunk so much that everyone has to stand together in order to form a government at all,” Seidendorf said and added: “We are not that far from that in Germany.”
Minister of State for Europe Krichbaum warns against exaggerating the risks. However he recognizes there are some: “France is a vibrant democracy. What is happening there now is part of a democratic debate. However, developments show that our European democracies face a variety of challenges. It must be the task of all of us to ensure that our democracies function properly and to fill them with life, also with regard to the virtual public sphere. This requires the commitment of society as a whole.”
This article was originally written in German.
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