Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
French Government Loses Confidence Vote
Yesterday, the French National Assembly voted no confidence in the government of Prime Minister Francois Bayrou. It was not even close, 364-194. Mr. Bayrou handed in his resignation today. It will now be up to President Macron to decide whether to hold an election or to appoint someone else who has command of a majority in the Assembly. The presidential palace has said that the decision will be made "in the coming days." One hopes he can find a working majority in this version of the legislature, because if not, there is a good chance the hard right will wind up in power.
The arithmetic herer is problematic. There are three seats that are unfilled, and so, the total number of legislators right now is 574, so a majority is 288. The largest bloc is the National Rally (formerly the National Front, children of the Vichy Republic) and irs allies with 138. The Macronist Ensemble has 91, France Unbowed (leftwing) has 71, and the Socialists and their allies have 66. The Greens have 38 and the Democrats (slightly right) have 36. Horizon (also acceptable right) has 34 when one includes independents working with it. Liot (a cross-party bloc concerned about the overseas territories) has 23 and the balance of 28 are independents.
The permutations of this are legion, and exploring them is an endless exercise in what-if. The situation, however, probably will not require a great deal of negotiation compared to the amount required following the last (or next) general election. Mr. Macron will be able to decide quite soon, by the week-end most likely, whether there is a legislator who can command a majority in the National Assembly. If there is, negotiations will take place over who gets what portfolio. That can take a few days or several weeks. The reason this will be a shorter negotiation is the players and situation has been gamed out on all sides for a while now.
The new PM will face the exact same problems that ousted Mr. Bayrou did. Whoever gets the job, he or she will be the fifth PM the Fifth Republic has had in the last couple of years. It reminds one of the chronic instability of Italian governments in the 1970s, when one wag said every Italian will get to be leader eventually. The trouble with that sort of revolving door is that there is not the credibility in the broader public to accomplish anything useful.
The biggest issue for any French government is the 3.4 trillion euro national debt. That is about 115% of GDP, and it is growing. Mr. Bayrou tried to cut 44 billion euro from the current budget, which would be helpful if completely inadequate. It was enough to cause his ouster. Just how the next PM will do any better is difficult to see. At this rate by 2029, French debt payments are likely to top 100 billion euro a year. Last year, that was just 59 billion euro.
"What we're increasingly seeing is a reluctance of market participants to buy the taxation route as a viable way to reduce big fiscal deficits," said Russel Matthews, portfolio manager at RBC BlueBay Asset Management, which is betting against French bonds. "It's just becoming less credible," he told Reuters.
The only other avenue is to cut spending. That has already proved grossly unpopular. The best outcome under these circumstances is to increase spending over the long term at a rate below GDP growth. Last year, France grew GDP by 1.2% . That does not leave much room for any increases in spending. That will require the French people to suffer for years with little to no increases in government spending. They probably will not accept that. It is not 1789 in France, but the very same problem that led to the execution of the King is there -- a lack of money.
© Copyright 2025 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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