The world is now gripped by the spectacular (and literal daylight) robbery perpetrated on the world’s most famous art museum on Sunday morning. As visitors queued to get in to the Louvre, thieves were escaping out of another wing, after a raid on the crown jewels that took just seven minutes. The story could have been lifted straight from a Hollywood movie or an episode of the French mystery thriller series Lupin.
Yet, although this outrageous theft has stunned France, it was perhaps a fitting act of larceny for a country that has just been the victim of another incredible heist. From one Monday to the next the French people were swindled into thinking we were getting a new government. The political drama left many of us feeling like confused characters in Groundhog Day, but perhaps the closer symbolism is to be found in the surreal theft at the Louvre.
To recap: Sébastien Lecornu, the prime minister, resigned on 6 October, less than a month into his term. Lecornu threw in the towel when it became clear he could not win the support of the national assembly for his budget. His resignation provoked the collapse of the shortest-lived government in the history of the Fifth Republic. Yet, 48 hours after promising that his “mission” as prime minister was “over”, Lecornu was reinstated in an audacious move by the president Emmanuel Macron, who entrusted the now ex-PM with the same mission he had just failed at.
Over the next seven days, the country was rocked by unprecedented political upheaval, yet we ended up back exactly where we had been, although led to believe that we had a new government.
This deception goes back to Macron’s reckless decision to call a snap election in 2024, after the far right made historic gains in European elections. The “back me or sack me” challenge produced a decisive rebuff for the president: a hung parliament with nobody able to command an overall majority. Macron could no longer dictate his politics to legislators. The problem is that Macron has never accepted that outcome. Not only has he repeatedly refused to appoint a prime minister from the left coalition which secured a plurality of votes, but he stubbornly keeps trying to build a government aligned with his own views, even though they have been rejected at the polls. Each attempt so far has ended in failure with prime ministers falling in quick succession.
Lecornu’s reappointment (he is one of the most faithful of Macron’s inner circle), gives us two successive governments with barely any variation, with many of the “new” ministers identifying as “Macronists” and several others coming from the rightwing party Les Républicains, which scored only 6.2% in the last legislative elections.
We are now at the mercy of a single individual – a president long accustomed to dictating his policies to a compliant parliamentary majority. His party is on political life support but it has made a last, desperate raid on power thanks to the unlikely support of a leftwing party. The Socialist party, which in 2024 was part of the left coalition that fiercely opposed Macron, has now entered into a pact with the government. It came to the table with high initial demands – including, notably, the creation of a “Zucman tax” (a proposed levy on the super-rich, inspired by the economist Gabriel Zucman), and the repeal of Macron’s pension reform. In the end, the mere promise of suspending the hugely unpopular pension change – with no real guarantee – was enough to win a commitment not to censure the entire budget.
The Socialists are busy applauding the suspension of the hated pension reform. But according to the economist Michaël Zemmour, this is merely a postponement in the implementation schedule – one that keeps the retirement age at 64 and allows a few generations to benefit, without any structural reconsideration of the reform itself.
It is important to note, too, that austerity-driven budget cuts have already inflicted tangible damage: in June, Louvre employees went on strike and blocked the museum, denouncing staff reductions and the lack of resources for security.
Yet, instead of standing up for their voters, Socialist leaders are letting Macron buy more time for his doomed reform project.
Last week I appeared on a TV panel, commenting on the appointment of the new government. I said how exasperating it was to find ourselves in the exact same situation as the previous Monday, only now with the impression that politicians were gaslighting us. One of the other panellists interrupted me to say there had been “some progress” and that we needed “to explain it to the audience”.
What is there to explain? People can see and understand for themselves. To me, such a reaction says a lot about the disconnect between the commentariat in France, who seem to enjoy the political game, and ordinary French people, reduced to the role of onlookers of a pathetic spectacle that only entrenches their daily problems.
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Upon his appointment, Lecornu announced “a major break, both in substance and in style” – only to present a government filled with many of the same faces, without the slightest shift in political direction. And now a prime minister who declared live on television that he was done with the job – is back in the job. How can French voters trust such politicians?
The authoritarian nature of Macron’s politics – and the dominance of the executive inherent to France’s Fifth Republic – have long been defended in the name of political stability. That rationale has served as a pretext for an increasingly hyper-presidential regime, which today stands as a true obstacle to the popular will.
No wonder French voters feel as if we have been the victims of a double heist; twice in the same month left wondering who is really in charge, and if the system is capable of protecting our most treasured assets.
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