He's too proud to settle (Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images)
In April, Emmanuel Macron became the first French president for two decades to win a second term. Two months later, he became the first French president in 34 years to be denied a parliamentary majority. French voters frequently complain that politicians never change anything — while protesting against any genuine attempts at change. In June they voted, deliberately or accidentally, for a deadlock.
Macron’s centrist alliance no longer had enough seats in the National Assembly to impose its will. No other group, or likely alliance, was large enough to dictate policy to the President. The result: stalemate. Or so it seemed. Two months on, no grand coalition has been formed. But nor is there a complete deadlock. Fears of instant chaos and early snap elections have proved exaggerated. France, after more than half a century of presidential, top-down politics, has rediscovered the messy joys of parliamentary democracy and verbal brawling.
Despite having 39 seats fewer than an overall majority, Macron’s prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, has managed to push through a €44 billion package of measures to blunt the impact of inflation. She may lack political experience, but she has proved to be a more effective parliamentary operator than many had predicted.
However, nothing difficult or truly controversial has yet been attempted. Deputies have been asked, in effect, to give away goodies to their constituents, including extending the price ceilings on gas and electricity, and subsidies on petrol and diesel prices. The unpleasant, uphill part of Macron’s second term is about to begin. September will see street marches for higher wages, as well as strikes and protests against the President’s proposed extension of the French retirement age to 64 and tougher rules for employment pay.
France is not a patient country: politics goes to the street more rapidly than in any other democracy. Macron’s opponents on the extremes of Right and Left now tell their supporters that his government is “illegitimate”. They say that the President does not represent a majority in parliament, let alone the country.
France is weathering the threat of Ukraine-war-generated stagflation reasonably well. Inflation is running at 6.1%, which is substantially less than in the UK and most other EU countries. Domestic power bills have been capped at 2021 levels or just above. Unemployment is still falling. But how long can Macron shield his nation from international inflationary forces? And what will it cost? Both the far-Left and far-Right are already pushing for the removal of sanctions against Russia. If Moscow cuts off EU gas supplies, the real cost of gas and electricity in France — and the cost to the state of subsidising them — will explode.
So far, some of the cost of France’s energy price gap has been concealed by imposing record losses on the largely state-owned power company, EDF. That cannot continue forever, even if the government carries through its plan to buy the remaining 16% of the company.
All this comes during a Sahel-like summer in which French forests burned and farmland across the country turned yellow. Yet Macron will struggle to rectify his patchy record on climate change in such a fragile economic environment. His government is due to present a grand strategy for moving to renewable energy next month: it will be dismissed as by the Left as too timid and the Right as too painful.
Macron knows that he is facing a winter of discontent. In a would-be Churchillian speech last Friday, he asked the French people to view their coming difficulties as “the price of liberty”. “I am thinking of our people,” he said, “and the strength of spirit they will need to… confront uncertainties, misleadingly simple responses and adversity and unite to accept that they must pay the price for our liberty and values.”
In other words, the President hopes to frame the autumn and winter protests as a narrow-minded refusal to accept that the West is in a prolonged state of economic war with Russia; and that the war is as much about protecting the future of France and other Western countries as it is about helping Ukraine. For this strategy to succeed, Macron needs to be consistent. It was foolish of him to be seen riding a fuel-guzzling jet ski on his summer break, while asking the French people to put up with energy shortages for the greater national good.
Macron and Borne face this tangled cat’s cradle of crises in the weakest position of any French government in half a century. Apart from a brief period in 1988-93, every president since 1965 has had a clear majority in the lower house of parliament.
Much depends on whether Macron and Borne can continue to form majorities in the National Assembly on an issue-by-issue basis. The signs are not encouraging: the centre-Right Les Républicains, who have propped up the Macron coalition so far, have already warned that they will vote symbolically against next year’s budget when the Assembly resumes in October. Borne could use emergency powers to push the budget through, but that would trigger a vote of confidence.
The present Assembly is split four ways, with fissures and tensions within each camp — including Macron’s own. Les Républicains, successors to the parties of Charles de Gaulle, Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, have been reduced to a rump of 62 seats out of 577. They have refused to join Macron’s centrist alliance — but have, however, supported the government in key votes, in return for Right-leaning shifts in policy, including a large, new breach in France’s 35-hour working week.
Members of the Left-wing alliance, Nupes (Nouvelle Union Populaire Ecologique et Sociale), the second-largest force in the assembly with 151 seats, have voted systematically against the government — albeit with one or two exceptions. They shout insults and wave their arms a great deal.
Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen’s unprecedented 89 deputies are under strict orders to appear calm and respectable. Some of the new Rassemblement National deputies find this discipline irksome. If Le Pen herself is absent, they too take the opportunity to hurl insults at Macron’s government. The RN has attacked the government on all its proposals but abstained this summer for fear of being seen to vote against inflation relief. Le Pen’s troops will not abstain this autumn and winter.
It’s clear that Les Républicains are the pivotal force in the new assembly, wielding power beyond their numbers. But they face an existential conundrum. They could either support Macron’s crisis-management policies and proposed reforms, giving him an against-the-odds triumph, or they could refuse to work with him and ensure that his second term is a failure. Some senior voices in the President’s camp are still hopeful that all or part of the centre-Right will agree next year to join a broader coalition. That is probably wishful thinking. There is a group of Républicains deputies ready to act as a rudder steering the government to the Right, on the economy, migration, and security. But others believe that helping Macron would destroy all hope of resurrecting the once dominant centre-Right and winning the 2027 presidential election. If they condemn the President to five years of muddle and drift, they say, they could bury Macronism and its would-be successors forever.
Much depends on who wins an internal election for Républicains party president in December. At its grassroots, the party is riven between its Macron-compatible, pro-European wing and the Macron-detesting nationalist-populists. The latter are almost certainly in the majority. The three leading candidates are likely to be Eric Ciotti, the Macron-hating, hard-Right deputy for Nice; the former European Commission Vice President, Michel Barnier; and a young, pragmatic deputy, Aurélien Pradié.
If Ciotti becomes the Républicains president, any alliance or systematic cooperation with Macron will be impossible. The Républicains parliamentary party might then split but that would not yield the 40 or so seats needed to create a stable, governing coalition.
By the end of the year, we will know whether the majority of the Assembly will support Macron’s flagship pension and employment law reforms. It will also be clear whether Macron and Borne can command ad hoc majorities to manage the triple interlocked crises of inflation, global recession, and war on the European continent.
If he cannot assemble the support, Macron will face a career-defining decision. In his first mandate, his reform agenda was overwhelmed by the Gilet Jaunes and Covid. Should he now accept a place in history as the young President who promised a great deal and achieved little? Or should he take the risk of dissolving the National Assembly and calling a new election?
Nothing in recent French politics suggests that Macron could expect a better result next year. French politicians rarely gain popularity while in office. One poll at the weekend showed the President sinking to 37% approval while his Prime Minister rose to 41%.
With an energy and inflation crisis, stretching into next spring, it is not the most obvious time to call an election. Asking French people to vote to work longer is unlikely to be a winning hand. Yet Macron is a young, energetic, and impulsive man. He will not easily settle for four years of posturing, drift and domestic and international firefighting.
His Blood, Sweat and Tears speech last week can be read in two ways. It could imply that he recognises that his only role in the next four years will be crisis-management — to prevent a deeply divided France from falling apart. Or it could suggest that he sees the coming multi-layered crises as an opportunity to assemble a broad, consensual centre against the extremes of Left and Right. Some senior Macron supporters believe that he will be tempted by next June to call an election in which he would campaign — to quote his speech — for “unity in adversity”. I can only say: good luck with that.
John Lichfield was Paris correspondent of The Independent for 20 years. Half-English and half-Belgian, he was born in Stoke-on-Trent and lives in Normandy.
john_lichfield 
Any chance we could stick to rational scientific debate? I thought that the whole point of Unherd was that it doesn’t follow the herd, but perhaps I was wrong? Give me information, not proselytization.
Not following the herd wherever it goes doesn’t mean disagreeing with it no matter what. On climate change, there are clearly some parts of the accepted narrative that are correct and backed up by good data and theory. It doesn’t mean we have to get all Greta Thunberg, but a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Science keeps saying this Pacific NW heat event is a 1 in 1000 year ‘Heat Dome’, a very rare climatic event
“The core of the heatdome, as measured by the thickness of the air column over British Columbia and the Pacific NW, is – statistically speaking – equivalent to a 1 in 1000 year event”
But a Gretta spin on everything is pretty much required these days. Remember, these events likely used to be 1 in 2000 year events, and are now 1 in 1000 year events, so likely means:
“In decades to come swathes of the world will resemble British Columbia today”
I always liked Poutine, so can handle it.
“Science keeps saying this Pacific NW heat event is a 1 in 1000 year ‘Heat Dome’, a very rare climatic event.”
Yes. It’s easy to google the heatwave in the pacific northwest and learn about the rare conjunction of factors that caused the heat dome. As the author of this article rightly notes at the beginning, there’s no evidence to link climate change to this anomalous event (although I think it should be conceded there might be a link to some extent). I’m not sure why the author chose to concede the current heatwave can’t definitely be linked to climate change and then use it as an example of what will happen to all of us if we don’t change our CO2-producing ways.
The more interesting question for me is what if the changes we now see in the climate are, for the most part, not caused by human activity? What if they’re part of a natural cycle of climate change? We can’t control that; all we can do is adapt and learn to live with it.
“What if they’re part of a natural cycle of climate change?”
There is too much money and prestige riding on that not being the case.
It’s funny because whenever it gets really cold we’re told it’s not climate, it’s weather. But when it gets really hot, apparently that’s climate, not weather.
Once upon a time climate scientists told us to expect a global freezing, that a new ice age was imminent, then there was the hole in the ozone layer melting the ice caps, then it was global warming. Now its climate change, I guess they gave up on predicting if its getting warmer or colder. How does this climate science have any credibility.
Boss: are we making or losing money?
George: All I can tell you is that the money we have will be different from yesterday.
Boss: you’re fired.
More details on the ‘once upon a time’ bit about climate scientists predicting global freezing would be helpful – or is this just impressionistic? And there’s really quite a bit of stuff available about the credibility of current climate science,
Google is you friend there Andrew, global freezing was climate science through out the 70’s
I confirm what George Glashan said. When I was a lad, global freezing was quite the fashionable thing. Peddling the new ice age scenario was the route to success in the academic rat race of the time, just as peddling anthropomorphic climate change is today. Science is as corruptible as any other human activity, and when there is money involved don’t stand in front of the stampede. Of course, the real skill lies in being able to swap horses part way through without falling off.
True, but note the possibility that a warming planet could involve a threshold phase shift to regional glaciation – rapidly shifting magnetic poles aside. It’s like trying fix a part-diagnosed car engine fault whilst swerving down a part known track towards a cliff (over it or into it who cares). See link: https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean/ocean-topics/climate-ocean/abrupt-climate-change/are-we-on-the-brink-of-a-new-little-ice-age/
14 times as many people die of cold each year and whilst global warming does drive maximum temperatures higher, most of the average temperature increase is accounted for by increases in the lowest temperatures, ie milder winters, more than cancelling out the total rise in heat deaths.
Also, whilst heatwaves are deadly, we are already perfectly able to adapt to them. Roll outs of air conditioning have reduced heat related deaths by 50-60% over the last few decades and are a cost effective fix.
I recommend you read some of Bjorn Lomborg’s writings on the subject.
‘Several of Bjørn Lomborg’s articles in newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal and The Daily Telegraph have been checked by Climate Feedback, a worldwide network of scientists who collectively assess the credibility of influential climate change media coverage. The Climate Feedback reviewers assessed that the scientific credibility ranged between “low” and “very low”.’ Just Wikipedia, but worth wondering about.
Thanks. Always good to have a broad range of sources and see what the counter arguments are. It will be interesting to see which of his claims they disagree with.
Especially since Lomberg takes the bulk of his data from the IPCC!
We should always remember that the so-called “fact-checkers” have skin in the game.
“the most extreme humid heat is highly localized in both space and time” (from the Science Advances paper linked to)
In other words, areas with extreme wet bulb temperatures, like deserts with dry heat, or arctic and antarctic locations with extremes of cold, will be relatively easy to avoid, or to use technology to mitigate the effects.
Science-scare articles often use linguistic sleights of hand. For example, a doubling of prevalence can accurately be labelled as ‘more widespread’. But if it’s a doubling from 0.0001% to 0.0002%, then ‘widespread’ (alone) which is often picked up in lay papers is entirely false. Here there is huge write up of potential ‘severity’ without really noting how easy it is to avoid.
Media reporting has been poor and may too have contributed to overemphases of data demanding far clearer qualification.
There was also a very nasty cold spell in Texas this year. Please don’t say this was just a freak weather incident. I recently read that the current Heat Dome in British Columbia is comparable to heatwaves during La Niña, which, according to the climate scientists, had nothing to do with Global Warming.
I really would like UnHerd to publish one of many scientists, who have other scientific explanations of natural occurring Warming, than the usual suspects who are just part of the Herd of Main Stream thinking.
Don’t forget ocean dynamics. See: https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean/ocean-topics/climate-ocean/abrupt-climate-change/are-we-on-the-brink-of-a-new-little-ice-age/
The BBC, which is an environmental campaigner, has been foregrounding this heatwave for days. The real issue is not whether it is getting hotter but what to do about it. And that in turn requires an adaptive response to what will be a hotter world, not endlessly going on about cutting emissions and “net zero”. There is some sign that the BBC is beginning to see this. But not much.
Mitigation is no longer enough alone, so adaptation is more critical. Both are needed,
Climate change today is what Satan used to be. A name for blame of anything seen as frightening or evil. So extreme weather is not extreme weather it is climate change.
What world do you come from that you think Satan was used to mean frightening? Satan was used to refer to the master of Evil, a very particular issue of ultimate, intentional, malevolence. Your post and upvotes show the young today have 100% disassociated from the entire human culture of the even recent past.
I will echo what a number of people have said and ask for articles discussing both sides of the climate change debate: man made vs natural occurrence.
“In decades to come swathes of the world will resemble British Columbia today”
As I have been hanging out in Vancouver BC a lot in my life I assume you mean the swaths will become second Provinces of China. Richmond BC was my old hangout, even in the 1980s it was called Hong-Couver.
Sad to see the old British ways so disregarded even though USA readership and neighbors remain in F, the European C is the only measurement here, and the Queens head is still the symbol of state in Canada.
I remember the horrible 1971 change over from the proud Roman system, and two thousand years of British usage, of proper money: farthing, haypenny, tuppence, thruppence, sixpence, shilling, florin, half crown, crown, ten bob, pound, and guinea when one British Pound = 240 pence. Then meters, and C and the EU taking over, a sad time.
The end result of all this is young people who have absolutely no ability at basic arithmetic – in the old days we could add up 3-8-4p and 3-5p and 13-9p in our heads, and then subtract it from a five pound note mentally…Now youth cannot add 47 and 19 without using their phones.
Also – WHY did you not give the ‘Wet Bulb Temp’ when it was 49.6 C? (this takes into account humidity of the air) since you went on about it.
The 12 based system was excellent! You modern folk have no idea. I do the trades in USA where 12 inches = 1 foot and 4 ft is the standard measure base.
10 is divisible by 2 and 5, or 1/5 and 1/2, hardly useful for building.
12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 6. 1/6, 1/3, 1/4, 1/2. Carpentry in USA is based on 16 inch center, 16, 32, 48 mostly, or 12 inch center, 12, 24, 36, 48 or 24 center, 24, 48.
One inch is divided by 1/32, 1/16/ 1/8/ 1/4, 1/2. Every 4 foot length, 8, 12, 16, 20, can be broken into easy whole numbers or simple, compatible, fractions without any .33333 or 0.125, or .0625 that are so hard to add up and make to ‘Break’.
The 13 knot string was histories greatest builder tool – 12 increments, and can be used to find square (right triangle at knot 3, 7, and closed at 12 makes 90 degrees, the 13 knot string (12 lengths between knots, base 12) was to find any useful angle, and length – an AMAZING tool.
Base 10 is for calculating, not making, it is not natural, 360, 180, 90 is how we still do circles, (12 based) and time, because it is NATURAL math, as it reflects the real world, not some paper calculation.
Carpenter’s squares are still what the world is built with, 360/90 degrees, not 100/10 – Napoleon, the guy who forced decimalization, wanted decriminalize clocks, calendars, circles, it is not usefull as it is not natural maths except for calculations on paper.
Any chance of getting some of that heat dome over to the UK?
Because it’s been bloody pissing down all over the b*****d place for a month now and I’m sick of it.
I remember back in the 70s my eldest brother scaring me about the imminent return of the ice age….
All a bit of a mystery, but perhaps Unherd’s scientist readers can publish here what they see as the unheard science base?