August 25, 2024 - 8:00am
The Paris Olympics is over and with it the “truce” that paused politics while France hosted the world’s elite athletes. Now, as the French return from their summer holidays, the serious business of governing begins again. There is only one problem: no party has a majority and Emmanuel Macron does not want to appoint the prime ministerial candidate suggested by the New Popular Front (NFP), the largest party — though without a majority — in the election earlier this summer.
Macron has been meeting with representatives from the NFP, as well as from France’s other parties, to ensure that the option which is best for “stability” is found. This is classic Macron. As with the “Great Debate” that followed the Gilets Jaunes, he plunges the country into chaos then he appeals to consensus and moderation, offering an image of democracy and political process while, in reality, power remains in Caesar’s hands.
The election threw up a situation in which the Right had the most votes but the system translated this into the Left winning the highest proportion of seats. All the while, power is still concentrated in the increasingly deranged centre. The disordered logic of the Fourth Republic has reconstituted itself within the Fifth, and Macron now finds himself with three options, none of which are ideal for him — or for the national stability he claims to crave.
First among these is the “technical government” advocated by current PM Gabriel Attal. This would see the acceptable faces of Left and Right band together around a reform program for the purposes of national unity. Attal has opened the door to the possibility that the prime minister of this coalition does not come from the “central bloc”, in an overture to the centre-left within the NFP.
However, this approach seems unlikely to work. On the Right, Laurent Wauquiez — who leads the Les Républicains dissidents that did not ally with the Rassemblement National (RN) — has refused to join any coalition. On the Left, the unity of the NFP remains surprisingly strong despite internal bickering, and the Macronists don’t even seem to believe in this plan themselves. They are preparing an austerity budget designed to “restrict the room for manoeuvre” of any future government, as one ministerial advisor put it.
The next option is the logical one — and arguably the only constitutional one — of allowing the NFP to appoint its chosen candidate, Lucie Castets, and waiting for the government to collapse thanks to its minority status. However, Macron has so far refused to do this, and the other Macronists also resent the idea. Attal has said that the centrist bloc in parliament will veto any government that contains ministers from Mélenchon’s party La France Insoumise (LFI). Mélenchon called Attal’s bluff this weekend, offering the possibility of an NFP government without LFI ministers in an echo of the original Popular Front which excluded the French Communist Party from ministerial positions.
However, other figures in the centrist bloc, such as François Bayrou, have let slip that the problem is the NFP’s programme, not the presence of Mélenchon’s allies. They fear that with Macron having set such a precedent for rule by decree, and with the RN in a sticky situation if cancelling proposed pension reform were put to a vote, the Left could pass reforms which would leave their legacy in tatters.
Even if the appointment of Castets might be the least testing option for the constitution, “legality” is apparently “not [Macron’s] primary concern” according to the aforementioned ministerial advisor. This leaves open another option: Macron appoints the PM he wants, democracy and elections be damned. LFI has said that it will move to impeach him if this occurs, using Article 68 of the Constitution to argue that the President would be acting “in breach of his duties” by refusing to select a widely agreed-upon candidate.
Whether this would pass is unclear: the rest of the Left might well join LFI in voting for impeachment, leaving the RN with a decisive role. Even if the rival parties chose to keep Macron in place, he would have proved his critics right in thinking that he is a leader with autocratic instincts and a limited regard for democracy.
Whichever of the options France’s President chooses, his eye is on the calendar. The next year looks to be one of gridlock and dysfunction, but he can call another election next July. Any government that does form will be but a limited reprieve from the diktat of Emperor Emmanuel.
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SubscribeTata Steel turning our virgin steel plants into tin can recycling centres and building a battery factory, all subsidised by the taxpayer for a ‘green’ ideology. A sad indictment of what this country has become.
“……. in these atomised times, of an associational life based on shared interests, fun, and a kind of everyday camaraderie.” Simply having fun and enjoying life. Long may it continue.
I really enjoyed this essay. Good stuff. Land Rover is definitely a status symbol in Canada, not a work vehicle.
I need to change a front signal light bulb in my 2016 Dodge Ram. I might have to bring it to the dealer. It’s so damn complicated and I need a ridiculous socket wrench extension. I knew something was up when the YouTube vid was 10 minutes long.
“a story of manufacturing prowess unlocked by foreign capital”
And the tragedy of that story for Britain is that there was always plenty of domestic capital to unlock that manufacturing prowess, it’s just that so much of it was being allocated to perennially more expensive houses – one of the least productive assets a nation can accumulate, but one of the least risky for shiftless bankers to lend against.
And that happened during 2 1/2 decades where the low birth rate meant house prices should have fallen. Without 400k+ net immigration a year since 2003 we would have had flat or falling house prices and people could have invested excess money into the productive sector.
We still could!
Perhaps it’s a delicious irony that the Parsi compradors of Bombay like the Tatas first flourished on account of the East India Company’s opium trade with China in Bombay.
They are now ruling the roost in twenty first century Britain.
From steel to car making.
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Parsis+of+India+and+the+opium+trade+in+China.-a0210368290
Britain and America both made the decision to adopt free trade policies that helped greatly reduce world poverty.
This was accomplished at the cost of obliterating their industrial base, and enriching a newly obstreperous China.
It’s also impossible to manufacture ships, planes, and weapons when you have no factories.
Banks and software companies can do a lot of good. But a nation needs an industrial base to survive, particularly in a hostile world.
I agree. It was a hugely selfish decision to obliterate manufacturing.
“.. luxury goods are not a promising basis for a modern economy ..”.
Oh I don’t know, LVMH is bigger than the rest of the Paris stock exchange put together.
I think the take away from this article is not the cars, but the people. The industry and creative energy of self selected hobbies seem to support groups of energized joyful people. Definitely a path worth following.
All I can remember is sitting in the back of a land rover, on metal, with a bunch of kids and fistfuls of halters, being driven up the Downs, to be unloaded and catching the ponies and riding them back down to the yard, bareback, leading one or two, often cantering, no helmets. That is what land rovers mean to me.
(Circa 1958).
A great article, thank you, it brought make fond memories.
I owned a series 2A and series 3 Landy, awesome vehicles that would go anywhere, slowly! I used to regularly drive my 3 from Cirencester to Reading and use the hard shoulder on the M4 so as not to slow down lorries.
The 2A had a split windscreen with wipers that barely worked and had individual motors that had to be spun to get the wipers working. The door locks were shot, and I used a hasp and staple and padlock to lock the doors. I once left it open in a car park, the car wasn’t stolen but the Mars bar on the seat was!
I wouldn’t touch, nor could afford, a modern one, and have used Isuzu for many years, but they too are not as good as they used to be.
Rather than stand for ‘manufacturing prowess,’ these gas-guzzling, road-hogging pieces of crap are an excellent way to identify people whose brains have been practically embalmed with money (to borrow a phrase from William S Burroughs) or are just so insanely foolish they’re willing to spend half their pay leasing one. The designers and marketers of these things are even more culpable. I’m tired of having local air quality destroyed for my children by stupid people who want the ‘status’ of a monster SUV, or — as a cyclist (the bicycle is how real tough guys travel) — having my already limited road space even further limited. The problem is even more urgent in Canada where, according to the IEA, people drive the least fuel-efficient vehicles of anywhere on the planet, and almost none of these vehicles are necessary — that is, almost never used for their purported off-road capability. Well, Canada is especially stupid…
The modern Landrover sits very lightly on the planet because of its superb modern engineering. The old ones, which I prefer, last so long that that largely compensates for the inefficiency at the exhaust pipe
Lightly on the planet indeed! A comparison of the 2024 Defender hybrid versus the 2024 Toyota Corolla shows it uses twice as much fuel. Then there are the extra resources needed to make it because it’s so huge, and then the extra wear on public roads due to the same.
The Range Rover is the most stolen vehicle in the UK, insurance will set you back on average £6k.
No it’s not, no it isn’t. How many Range Rovers were stolen in the UK last year? 11. Eleven.
But that reputation is a great excuse for increased insurance costs!!
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been disgusted by people complaining about gas prices. People say gas prices are too high but I look around and see people driving Escalades, Navigators, Explorers, and even people in trailer parks with their Rangers and F150’s and I think actually they’re not high enough. Some people just drive around as a form of recreation, which strikes me as basically lighting money on fire to watch it burn. I suppose back before the Internet there wasn’t much to do out in the countryside. Perhaps this behavior finally dies off with the boomer generation.