Mujtaba Rahman is the head of Eurasia Group’s Europe practice. He tweets at @Mij_Europe.
France’s parliament is back, and along with it are Prime Minister François Bayrou’s many political problems — ones that could very well threaten the survival of his minority government.
As it stands, the Socialists hold the balance of power in a fragmented National Assembly. But the party is in disarray ahead of a June congress, which is critical to the future of a movement that once dominated France’s political left.
First Secretary of the Socialists Olivier Faure is being challenged by an alliance of more moderate, social-democratic, pro-European forces within his party. And in response, he and his supporters may seek to provoke a crisis to galvanize grassroots support from the party’s left wing. It’s a turn that may involve him attempting to pull the plug on the group’s loose support for Bayrou, which was key to passing the belated 2025 budget in February.
Meanwhile, the center-right Republicans, who form a critical part of Bayrou’s minority government, are also in turmoil. The party is set to elect a new leader this month, and their current President Laurent Wauquiez faces the prospect of a humiliating defeat by a senior member of Bayrou’s government — the hard-line and popular Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau.
This internal leadership contest threatens to become a battle between party members who support an alliance with President Emmanuel Macron’s center and those — like Wauquiez — who detest it. Much like the Socialists on the left, the Republicans can’t seem to revive their past glories while a strong Macronist, or post-Macronist, center survives. And if Wauquiez loses, he may try to explode the coalition.
Then, there’s Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party, which is considering whether and how to cause mischief in retaliation for the five-year ban from public office she received following her conviction for embezzlement last month.
If all this weren’t problematic enough, Bayrou’s own position has also been weakened by a nagging scandal from 30 years ago, concerning allegations of violence and sexual abuse at a Catholic school near his constituency at Pau in the Pyrenees when he was education minister. In February, Bayrou told the National Assembly he knew little to nothing about the allegations at the time. Yet, his statement has been contradicted in recent days by, among others, his own daughter.
The prime minister is set to appear before a parliamentary committee investigating the affair later today, and an unconvincing performance will increase both media and opposition pressure for his removal from office.
Realistically speaking, the scandal is unlikely to bring Bayrou down on its own. It could, however, embolden his parliamentary enemies — and supposed friends — to pull the plug for other reasons.
The biggest challenge confronting Bayrou’s administration — and the most likely reason it won’t survive the year — remains France’s budgetary crisis.
It’s only been two months since the budget passed, and the government has already had to take emergency action, starting with a €3.1 billion cut in agriculture and energy spending, in order to fill a €5 billion hole. The situation threatens to widen this year’s deficit from the promised 5.4 percent of GDP to 5.8 percent.
Moreover, if France is to achieve next year’s deficit target of 4.6 percent of GDP, Bayrou has to find an additional €40 billion in “savings” for the 2026 budget. Although the government says most of this money will come from spending cuts, ministers have spoken of possibly suspending the inflation-proofing of pensions and other social payments. And it has also raised the possibility of at least partially abolishing a 10 percent tax rebate for pensioners introduced in the 1970s.
The beleaguered Socialist leadership has pounced on these ideas as possible reasons to join the wider left and the far right in a censure motion. They’re also threatening to unseat Bayrou if a key concession he made in February — reopening union-employer discussions on Macron’s 2023 pension reform — fails to lead to draft legislation that lowers the state pension age from 64 back down to 62.
Meanwhile, Le Pen’s National Rally could seize on the same issues if it decides to seek revenge for her criminal conviction, thus pitching the country into renewed political chaos.
To bring Bayrou down, a censure motion like this would require the combined votes of most of the divided left and far right (289 of 577 deputies). Currently, the prime minister can count on the active support of about 210 deputies — and if Wauquiez splits the Republicans, even that number may be diminished.
All these disparate grievances will undoubtedly lead to a series of threats and alarms in the upcoming weeks. And though French voters have no appetite to pile a domestic crisis on top of the international crises prompted by the U.S. administration’s actions, Bayrou’s government will remain only one step away from collapse for the foreseeable future.
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