Who will bring down Michel Barnier? French politicians are playing a dangerous game

When the Barnier government was first put together, at the end of the summer, after an extended period of feverish uncertainty, it seemed as if it might signal some kind of return for the country’s centre-right Républicains. They were given some of the most powerful roles — the minister of interior, for instance — whilst Barnier himself came from this wing of the political spectrum. The Left cried foul, as they considered themselves the winners of the legislative elections, and yet the centre-right was back in power.

However, it was always dangerous to rest the revival of a party and a political tradition on an edifice as fragile as the Barnier government. Less than six months later, we see that the fundamental dynamic of political fragmentation — where no political force is able to create a majority of any kind — is reasserting itself. And the Barnier government is a distillation of that fragmentation rather than a way of overcoming it.

This fragmentation has not come out of the blue. It was already evident in the early 2000s, but it was masked by the rallying effect that came from surprisingly good scores by the French far-Right. The fact that neither the Left nor the Right could command the same sort of vote share as in the past was hidden by the power of the cordon sanitaire: majorities were built on a fear of letting the far-Right into power.

This resistance to the far-Right has steadily fallen away, leaving the centre-right exposed and unable to secure its place in the presidential run-off. At the same time, the Left has split between the centre and the far-Left. Macronism, for a time, functioned as a broad centrist coalition, able to govern and thus seeming to reverse this trend of fragmentation. However, lacking any ideological consistency, this was only a temporary solution.

Today, with a shrunken Macronist party, the only thing keeping the Barnier government in place are the fears of his opponents about what exactly might happen should he be brought down. The far-Left, dominated by Jean Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise, is determined to censure the government: it has never accepted its legitimacy in the first place. Though Mélenchon clearly relishes the prospect of a chaotic end to Barnier’s tenure as prime minister, there are others on the Left who are more cautious about what the voters will make of this parliamentary coup de grâce.

The same consideration lies on the far-Right. Marine Le Pen is unquestionably the one holding the cards at the moment. The Left can only bring Barnier down if they also have the support of the far-Right. Le Pen has up until now judged the government on a pragmatic basis, keeping her powder dry. The Rassemblement National has not managed to get over its own sense of betrayal in the legislative elections, when enough of the other parties united against it to keep it out of power. Moreover, it has not won any obvious battles in the debates on amendments to the budget. This week, Marine Le Pen declared that as things stand with the budget, she would also support a dissolution of the government. Even so, she is cautious about triggering an unnecessary crisis. She is also wary of being seen to play political games typical of the Parisian elite, games that appear unintelligible to her voting base.

There is no principled defence or critique of the Barnier government today in France. Current discussions and decisions are overwhelmingly tactical. Those eying up the presidency in 2027 — such as former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, and former leader of Les Républicains Laurent Wauquiez — are asking themselves whether a dissolved government will be good or bad for their chances. Both are watching events closely.

But despite this uncertainty, a full-blown crisis of the eurozone still seems far-fetched, given the broadly robust nature of the French economy. A sense of governability at the national level, however, is a key criterion for eurozone stability. And in France, the budget and the country’s future economic trajectory have become subordinated to political calculation. The government currently survives: but its existence is an expression of the indecision of others. And even though France has a government today, it remains no more governable than in the dramatic weeks after the dissolution of the legislature.

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Christopher Bickerton is a Professor in Modern European Politics at the University of Cambridge.

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