Transcription
For really quite a long time now, France has been beset by political chaos. The government has struggled to pass a budget in the face of a divided legislature, giving way to a constant churn of prime ministers.
Unfortunately for French President Emanuel Macarron, on Monday, his latest appointee, longtime ally Sebastian Laconu, suddenly resigned literally a day after announcing his cabinet, putting yet more pressure on Macron himself. So, in this video, we'll take another look at France's neverending political crisis. why France is so divided and whether the country is ungovernable.
[Music] If you're interested in the political alliances and groupings that shape our world, then you might enjoy our poster, Every Alliance Explained. It shows in slightly confusing detail all of the world's major alliances and how different countries link together. Check out the poster as well as the video which explains it by clicking the link in the description.
Let's start with a quick recap. This story probably begins in 2022 when Macron's centrist government led by then Prime Minister Elizabeth Bourne lost its majority in the French legislature. After that, Macron and Bourne had to increasingly rely on article 49.3, an arcane constitutional provision that allows the prime minister to pass a bill without a vote in the National Assembly, unless a motion of no confidence is successfully passed within 48 hours.
However, it soon became clear that relying on article 49.3 wasn't politically sustainable. There were recurring protests. Macron's approval rating was plummeting and the threat of a no confidence vote grew each time article 49.3 was invoked. However, with article 49.3 essentially off the table and Bourne unable to cobble together a majority in the National Assembly, legislative deadlock ensued.
Macron tried to break the deadlock by replacing Bourne with the fresh-faced Gabrielle Atal. But this didn't work. So in mid 2024, Macron called snap legislative elections in the hope of winning an outright majority. Again, this didn't work. Macron centrist coalition actually lost seats and both the NFP coalition to his left and the national rally to his right had campaigned on programs that would actually require more borrowing.
Macron then appointed yet another prime minister, Michelle Barier, who tacked to the right to win support from the national rally to get a new budget passed. But this didn't work. So Barney tried to use article 49.3 to force it through which triggered a no confidence vote that Barier lost after only 3 months in the job.
Barier was then succeeded by Fans Bau who proposed a relatively austere budget that included scrapping two national holidays. Byru essentially gambled on his ability to persuade the public, even releasing a YouTube series discussing his budget and publicly attacking France's costly pension system, which is something few French politicians dare address. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough for Bou, who lost a confidence vote in early September.
Buu was then succeeded by Macron loyalist Sebastian Lornu who tried to find support for his budget by pivoting to the left with the French press reporting last week that Lornu was considering further taxes on those earning more than €250,000 a year. Lornu's strategy here was pretty obvious to peel the relatively moderate socialists who used to be one of the two big parties in France away from the wider left-wing alliance.
Unfortunately, this didn't seem to work and opposition parties were unhappy with his cabinet appointments, which were broadly unchanged from his predecessors. Then on Monday, the Socialists said they'd vote against Lakonu's government if a vote was held. And a few minutes later, Lonu suddenly resigned.
So, what happens next? Well, it's now become overwhelmingly clear that Macron cannot get a budget through, not least because the opposition has little incentive to compromise when the next presidential elections are only 18 months away. and any association with Macron would be politically toxic. This episode will thus put immense pressure on Macron to either resign, although he's obviously ruled this out, or at least call fresh legislative elections.
Unfortunately for the French, as much as they might hate Macron, getting rid of him won't necessarily break the deadlock. Whoever succeeds him as president will still face the same impossible arithmetic. And polls suggest that new elections would yield a similarly divided legislature. This speaks to perhaps the fundamental issue in French politics at the moment, that the electorate is just too divided.
For starters, there's a severe intergenerational divide. In short, older voters are generally supportive of the status quo, while younger voters are not. This became overwhelmingly apparent in the 2024 legislative election. Older voters were far more likely to vote for either Macron centrist party or the center-right Leroy Publical while younger voters instead went for more radical outlets on the left and right with the left-wing coalition fairing particularly well with the 18 to 34 year olds.
That older voters should be more willing to preserve the status quo is unsurprising when you consider how the status quo has benefited older people. According to a recent analysis by John Burn Murdoch at the Financial Times, since the 1970s, French pensioners have seen their incomes grow far faster than the working population to the point where astonishingly your average French pensioner now has a higher income than your average working age adult, making France an international outlier in this respect.
The gap between the left and right has also grown in recent years in part because of the intrablock fragmentation. Between the 2017 and 2024 French legislative elections, the farright's vote share has more than doubled and the left block share has also increased while the centrist parties and establishment le Republican party have been squeezed. There are now 13 separate political groups in France's National Assembly, up from just seven in 2017 and the most ever during the French Fifth Republic.
This makes the current French parliament look a lot like the Dutch or even Belgian ones, both countries with coalition governments. However, unlike those countries which use proportional representation, France uses a two round voting system that has historically encouraged a twob block leftright dynamic. Due to this fragmentation, in recent months, Macron's cabinet has reportedly held talks with various parties about changing France's electoral system to proportional representation.
Thirdly, France also displays the urban rural divide we also see in other European democracies with rural areas more likely to support populist and euroskeptic parties like the RN. At the 2024 legislative election, the RN made some of its strongest gains along France's so-called empty diagonal, a section of the country with low population density from the southwest to the central northeast. As this Bloomberg map shows, in France's second least densely populated department, Contel, the RN's vote share multiplied five-fold between 2017 and 2024.
A 2022 survey found that 84% of French people in rural areas believe their area is generally the last to benefit from public spending in areas like roads, education, and health. While 67% feel their way of life isn't sufficiently respected by outsiders. The fact that political decision-making is centralized in Paris reinforces this perception of elitism and the belief that rural areas aren't fairly considered.
Now, maybe we're being too pessimistic here. It's possible that new elections will give the various parties more of an incentive to compromise because at the moment, the prospect of elections in 2027 is deterring anyone from cooperating with Macron, who's not helped by the fact that he's incredibly unpopular. But this is in no way guaranteed and it's at least possible that under its current electoral system and with the current levels of political polarization, France is just ungovernable.
You know as well as us that in the current climate, it's important to stay sharp and perhaps even more important to be precise. Well, our sponsor this week, Henson Shaving, know this better than anyone and take pride in their precision. That's because their razor perfectly holds the blade at a 30° angle and extends at only 0.01 0.13 in less than the width of a human hair, which means incredibly tight tolerances, very high standards, and superb precision.
This also results in a much healthier shave compared to the overpriced plastic razor cartridges that leave your skin feeling sore and mistreated. Speaking of plastic, you probably don't realize, but over 2 billion plastic razors are thrown into landfill each year in the US alone. So, not only are they wildly expensive, they're also terrible for the environment. The same can't be said for Henen, though, as their razors are completely plastic-free. From the blade to the box, everything Henson ships out to you is entirely recyclable.
Hensson strives to protect your skin in a way that's accessible, affordable, and kind to the environment. And while it may sound intimidating, changing the blades yourself, it's actually remarkably easy to do and even kind of satisfying taking full control of your shave. If you've been meaning to try out Hensen, there's no better time to start than right now, as we're offering you a 100 free blades with your purchase when you use the code TLDDR at checkout. Just go to henssonshaving.com/tlddr or click the link in the description and you'll be on your way to a healthier shave.