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(8 minutes read) We’d gone to la France (semi-)profonde for Easter. Sea, sand … and 28.3°C in nearby Quimper. In mid-April. That put other more immediate anxieties in perspective. But the anxieties soon re-surfaced. Brittany was once the only French region where the far-Right (despite being the birthplace and family home of the National Front founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen) never broke through.…

All Aboard ! Next stop Presidential Election !

(10 minutes read) Last vote before next spring Regular readers will remember my referring to the French people’s love for their Mayor, certainly by comparison with anyone else elected into office. 22 March was the last election in which everyone could vote before April 2027’s Presidential Election. Even so, many didn’t take advantage of the opportunity. [For certain privileged voters there…

ParisElectionGate Shock Horror ... but (good news) the Left keeps Paris

(4 minutes read) A small appetite-whetter, ahead of the weightier meal of tonight’s Municipal Elections results (and in the light of tonight’s 20:45pm polling guesstimate that Paris has remained). A lovely murky little story which broke on Friday, but couldn’t be followed up because of the compulsory 24-hour close-down ahead of Election Day enabling peaceful electoral reflection to take…

Mayors ! Doncha just love 'em !

(9 minutes read) The French really do like their Mayors. Over 60% have a ‘good’ or ‘very good’ opinion. Forget the National Assembly Députés. Forget those strange, indirectly-elected Sénateurs. Above all, forget the President. Every poll confirms the belief that France’s favourite politician is the Mayor. [Er. Well. But. Liking them doesn’t actually make people do much to show their support.…

President Macron does 'useful' things

(10 minutes read) In his New Year’s Eve TV address, Emmanuel Macron evidently thought it helpful to remind awakening Rip van Winkles that the 2027 Presidential Election would be the first in a decade in which he wasn’t a participant. Heralding his last complete year in office [Discuss: should that read ‘power’?] Macron promised he’d Carry On Working ‘until the very last second’ of his…

France's modest Prime Minister laboured mightily and delivered a not-quite-so-modest Budget (the two PM's before him couldn't produce one at all)

(4 minutes read) On 2 February to scarcely discernible applause (little more than the sound of one hand clapping) Parliament approved France’s Budget. This was after it was dismissed out of hand by the Right-dominated Sénat (203 votes to 32) with the upper house refusing even to consider the Budget four laborious months of circuitous National Assembly debate, and the predicted failure of the…

Act V begins in three months. When does the deus ex machina appear?

(9 minutes read) In Holland a Budget was presented to its Parliament in 1572. England began in 1689. France in 1830. Every country has its individualistic means of getting their annual national budget approved by the legislature. Over two centuries, France’s exceptionalism has emerged, with the social security budget being addressed apart from the remainder of the Budget, with revenue and…

It's Groundhog Day again (and again and again)

(7 minutes read) Like Bill Murray’s weatherman in Punxsutawney, France’s politicians remain locked in an endless, but tediously real, cycle of déjà-vu. Groundhog Day 1 On 14 January, the major parties on France’s political extremities (hard-Left France Unbowed and far-Right National Rally) proposed that Parliament debate a vote of no confidence, or censure vote, on the Government. To bring…

#Bardella #Budget #Censure vote #Le Pen #Lecornu

One sotto voce Prime Ministerial cheer last week. Now it's another week of all the dangers

(7 minutes read) Last Tuesday, Prime Minister Lecornu successfully persuaded enough Deputies to support (or at least abstain from voting against) next year’s Social Security Budget. Thirteen votes saved Lecornu from the same fate as his predecessor but one, Michel Barnier. A year ago, Barnier suffered the indignity of becoming the first PM since Georges Pompidou, in 1962, to have to be put down…

Cancel Mr Lecornu's taxi. Prime Minister Lecornu still has his chauffeur.

(1 minute read) Cause and effect In tonight’s formal ‘final’ National Assembly vote on the Social Security Budget, the Government got its Budget passed with a majority of 13 votes (247 votes against 234) With that, Prime Minister Lecornu lives on to fight yet more days. A small battle duly won. But the trench warfare continues. The Social Security Budget – which includes the (in)famous…

The Budget is hokey-cokeying its way through Parliament: you put your pensions reform suspension clause in, you take your pensions reform suspension clause out, in, out, in, out.

(7 minutes read) Overshadowing the altogether 125 hours of Budget debate (sound and fury signifying little) is the constitutional requirement that the Budget be adopted before 31 December. Prime Minister Lecornu’s preference is for one reducing the social security deficit to some €20bn, up from the original €17bn. Though after the Deputies decided against the proposed pensions/welfare benefits…

What do we want ? A Budget ! When do we want it ? Faster than we're getting it (but with all our demands and none of theirs)

(11 minutes long-ish read) Prime Minister Lecornu’s second government has now been in office (if not exactly in power) for a month. A distinct improvement on his first effort which (he) collapsed after 14 hours. In mid-October Sébastien Lecornu delivered his first (and quite likely last) What I Intend Doing While I Remain Prime Minister speech. He confirmed he wouldn’t use his…

Lecornu lives on to fight another day. (Mélenchon lives on to fight the Socialists - his favourite activity).

(2 minutes read) Hard-Left and far-Right fail to bring down Lecornu by 18 votes Following Monday’s Prime Ministerial political statement came Thursday’s inevitable Censure Motions: one each from Mélenchon’s hard-Left (supported by Ecologists and Communists) and from Le Pen’s far-Right. To bring down Prime Minister Lecornu’s second Government, the anti-Government forces needed 289 Deputies (an…

The Prime Minister produces a rabbit from his hat, shoots the populists' fox, and (quite probably?) avoids Parliamentary defeat [and I celebrate with a multi-animal mixed metaphor]

(2 minutes read) President Macron and Prime Minister Lecornu blinked … and how Today, Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure took a giant step forward to being seen as having some political heft. Faure was assailed by many who’d normally support him: he was demanding far too much from the Prime Minister. He was told that his old-style approach would inevitably result in a major political defeat…

There were 27 days when nothing happened. Then there was a week when more than 27 days happened.

(3 minutes read) The Story So Far: Last Wednesday Sébastien Lecornu, France’s shortest-serving Prime Minister since 1958 (27 days) – who earned additional distinction as the leader of the shortest-lived Fifth Republic Government (836 minutes) – presented President Macron his conclusions after two extra days of Lecornian party consultations, which fulfilled the President’s ‘mission’ which…

Et tu Attal

(3 minutes read) It’s increasingly difficult to find anyone who hasn’t got it in for him. ‘Him’, of course, is France’s oh-so-solitary President Macron. What do you think of it so far? Rubbish France’s regional newspapers put anything other than national politics on their front pages. This, despite the long tradition of senior politicians who give exclusive interviews to the regional press as…

And with that the P.M. was gone. Except that, suddenly, maybe he wasn't. Is anyone in charge of this non-sense?

(3 minutes read) Yesterday it was ‘Going, going … gone (?)’ Silly me. Why did I include a question mark? Still worse, I mused: ‘… it really looks as though this Government will be out of office before October’s out.’ It was actually out of office early this morning. For the record, the unlamented (if premature) demise of Prime Minister Lecornu’s Government was announced formally by the…

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