Macron’s government collapses … again

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:08Today, France plunges into crisis as the government collapses again.

0:26On Monday, French lawmakers filed into the National Assembly in Paris. The embattled Prime Minister François Bayrou had called a confidence vote on his unpopular austerity budget, and with it had rolled the dice on his own political future. Madame la Présidente

0:47Mesdames et Messieurs les députés So there were raucous scenes in the French Parliament. François Bayrou took to the stand to make a long speech about how France was at risk of being submerged by a swamp of debt.

1:03But he was heckled by opposition politicians. And he then said afterwards that he wouldn't reply to insults, that he thought that this was a lamentable kind of image of violence and contempt in politics. Beirut's gamble failed. 194 against 354. The budget was crushed and within hours he was gone, the third French prime minister in a year to fall. François Beirut has lost the confidence vote. in the National Assembly and will now need to tender his resignation. Outside town halls across the country, protesters staged mock goodbye drinks, waving signs reading bye bye Bayru and popping open bottles of wine.

1:54And today there's more. A national day of action will see strikes, universities shut down and roads blockaded across the country in what could be a fresh wave of mass protests for France.

2:15For Emmanuel Macron, it's another storm in a turbulent few years. On Tuesday night, he appointed a new prime minister, but it's unclear if that will be enough to quell France's political frustrations. From The Guardian, I'm Lucy Hoff. Today in Focus. What's driving the political chaos in France? And what does it mean for Macron?

2:42Anjali Christophus, you're The Guardian's Paris correspondent, and you were watching on Monday as the French Prime Minister, François Bayrou, lost the confidence vote that he himself had called. Why did he do that? Talk us through how we got here. Yes, François Bayrou, the centrist prime minister, astonished even his own political party by calling a sudden confidence vote in September. And this is hinged to the budget. It's very hard in France at the moment to pass a budget because of the divided parliament. And Bayrou had come up with some ideas in July for this kind of austerity budget, which he said wasn't austerity.

3:20And it had one of the world's biggest PR disasters in French terms, which was he wanted to scrap two bank holidays, which essentially meant he was asking French people to work more but not get paid. He also wanted a freeze on most welfare spending and these ideas were unpopular across the board. He knew that he was likely to be ousted because of them later in the autumn and he called this vote as a way of jumping before he was pushed. And why were those measures necessary? What was his argument? His argument was that France is standing on a cliff of horrific public debt. Now the thing is no one could agree on why this had happened.

3:58France has this public debt problem, which has been going on for decades. It's been more than 50 years that France hasn't balanced a budget. France has a big debt burden. It has high public spending and its debt has now reached 114 % of GDP. This is actually lower than Greece or Italy's, but its debt payments are really spiralling. So paying back its debts is becoming the single biggest budget expense. And Bayrou has now spent weeks saying, I will tell the nation the truth about the state of French debt without properly examining why the debt has got this bad and getting other parties on board, really.

4:36Is it a risk? Yes, it's a risk. But the bigger risk, the supreme risk, is to do nothing. So he was destined to fail in the budget, you could say, and he knew that. Right. And that's because Macron doesn't have a majority in Parliament, does he? Last year he called this snap election to try to win back his majority and see off the far right in the National Rally Party led by Marine Le Pen. That election was a massive gamble, wasn't it? And it didn't work out for Macron. The result of that election was inconclusive. It was a hung parliament, which meant that we were left with sort of three equal blocks.

5:18There was a left alliance which actually got the most number of seats, but very far off an actual majority. Then there was the far right, which got the highest number of votes, but also very far off a majority. And then you had Emmanuel Macron's centrists who were damaged. They lost seats, but they were still present. They were still standing. And from those three groups, nobody had a majority. And what counted and what Macron was still suffering for was, which is what he did next. He took a long time to choose a prime minister. He didn't go to the left who had the most seats or the far right who had the most votes.

5:53He went and found a prime minister, Michel Barnier, the right wing Michel Barnier, who was a Brexit negotiator, whose party, the right, Les Républicains, had barely 40 seats in parliament. They were a tiny party and it was seen as a way for Macron to try and prop himself up without really changing anything. And this became known as a kind of coalition of losers. And ever since, for more than a year, we have this sort of limping coalition of losers. Barnier was ousted himself after three months only, and Bayrou lasted barely nine months. Emmanuel Macron has had to appoint his third prime minister in one year, which is starting to look a bit like carelessness.

6:32It's going to be his fifth prime minister since he began his second term in 2022. And the problem for him is it might not be his last. The next prime minister could fall as quickly as the last one. So with that hung parliament in mind, talk to me about the scale of the opposition to Bayrou's austerity budget. Who voted against him and why? So politicians across the board voted against him from all sections of the left-wing alliance and also Marine Le Pen's far-right national rally. They were opposed to the budget for various reasons. So the socialists or the left might say, hang on a minute, the problem in this country is the fact that you and Emmanuel Macron cut taxes on businesses and your pro-business stance has actually a problem.

7:21Whereas the centrist of Macron might say, no, the problem is public spending and ageing population and pensions. And the far right would say, no, the problem is actually we're spending too much money on immigration.

7:42And can we take stock of French President Emmanuel Macron, who is now well into his second term after taking office in 2017 and has really established himself as a leader on the world stage, recently spending time with Donald Trump and Keir Starmer. He's had regular meetings with Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine. He's become a leading voice on the recognition of Palestine. So, you know, he's been carrying out that role with some degree of success internationally. But it seems that he's perceived hugely differently within France. Tell me about how the French perceive him. So Emmanuel Macron, when he was first elected in 2017, he was this former banker who wanted to liberalise the economy.

8:24He didn't come from a specific party. He was creating a new centrist group. He said, I'm going to be pragmatic. I'm going to cherry pick from the left and the right. He won a massive parliamentary majority. He was popular and he could essentially do what he wanted, which was pro-business changes, loosening the labour rules, cutting taxes on companies and shifting the wealth tax to a different form of tax. And at the beginning, he had full support. What began to happen during his first term was he began to be known as president of the rich. And so while he was really very present on the international stage, which of course is one of the key jobs of the French president, the French president is responsible for international affairs and national security.

9:09And the French president appoints a prime minister to deal with domestic affairs. So Macron was really scoring very high on the international scene, but he was facing several crises back at home. There was the gilet jaune yellow vest anti-government protests, which began against fuel tax and then sort of grew much bigger.

9:34The government says these were the most violent protests in Paris in over 50 years. It's grown into a working-class revolt against the economic policies of President Emmanuel Macron. And then, of course, he faced Covid. French citizens that are compatriots. The times we're living through are hard times. What happened was then he was re-elected in 2022 for his second term. But this time round, things were very different. He didn't have a clear majority. He only had one major idea, which was raising the pensions age, so people had to work longer, which was very unpopular, and he saw protests. And then, of course, he called this snap election last year, which was inconclusive.

10:23And so what we've seen in his second term is, in a sense, domestic failure. He hasn't managed to galvanise France behind him with any transformation of society. And his own personal popularity is really, really spiralling. So last week, one poll found that only 15 % of French people trusted him to deal with the current political crisis. And that's surfing quite close to record unpopularity there. François Bayrou, the prime minister, of course, is now, has broken the records as the most unpopular prime minister that France has seen since 1958. And Macron is going in the same direction. So clearly a hugely ambitious president and one who has tried to tackle some of the major problems facing France.

11:13I mean, this is a big question. You mentioned France's enormous debt earlier, surpassed only by Greece and Italy in Europe in terms of national debt. But what are some of the other problems facing France's economy? I think France is a country which did face decades of mass unemployment. And so work and labour issues are a big deal in France. And that's something that Macron wanted to tackle. But he hasn't had the growth he expected. But I think the key issue in France right now is a social, is a society problem in the sense that France has a very strong social security net in terms of unemployment, social care, health care, pensions.

11:58and the left see this as under threat and while we've seen many countries in Europe having this large inequality gap between rich and poor because France has this safety net which will look after you the gap was much smaller however France is now slotting into a much broader global atmosphere where you have the very very rich and the poor getting poorer and so poverty levels in France are increasing. And at the same time, you have a huge concentration of inherited wealth, which many sociologists are saying is making France look more like the 19th century. And this is creating a rift with politicians because French people are very attached to public services because they pay high taxes for those services.

12:44And many people feel those services aren't working for them. They feel that schools are suffering from lack of teachers. the health service has faced a lot of cuts in recent years and many hospital staff say that they're struggling and are planning to strike. And people have this perception that the public services aren't working and those social issues are really in need of being addressed. And why has it been so difficult for Macron to get a grip on these problems, do you think? I think one of the key issues in the recent year has simply been major instability in Parliament with these three blocks.

13:20I mean, if you think that a Prime Minister couldn't actually pass the budget, Michel Barnier fell because he couldn't get a budget through. Byron managed to get one through quickly after that, but fell at the next hurdle for the following year. So fundamentally, if you have opposition politicians which won't even support a budget, there's very little room for manoeuvre. Angelique, you're based in Paris, but what has your reporting around the country showing you about how people are feeling in France? There's a great mistrust in politicians and the political class and no one's winning from this.

13:53All parties are suffering from that. There is a sense in not just some rural areas but also in some suburban areas, peripheral areas around big cities, that there aren't enough public services, that there aren't enough doctors in some rural areas that 20 departments in France don't actually even have a dedicated palliative care unit. So those issues are issues that people worry about. They're also worried about the difficulty in making ends meet. And there's a sense that politicians are playing for themselves, not playing for the nation. So the disconnect between the political class and the French voter is probably greater than has been seen in France for many, many years.

14:36And of course that's feeding into protest movements and potential strikes. So from everything you're saying, Angelique, people are angry. The French clearly have a long history of protests taking to the streets in response to unpopular leaders, policy decisions, as we saw with the Gilles Jeune protests and the attempts at pension reform. How much of a threat are mass protests now? Well, there is a new protest movement that's due to begin this week, which is quite hard to sound out because it's begun very much online, but it's become known as Block Everything. And there have been a few meetings across France to organise for it.

15:16There's certainly going to be a massive police presence out on Wednesday, about 80 ,000 police officers and gendarmes across France. And what is most likely to happen are going to be sort of different forms of blocking different places. So we could have fuel depots blocked, roundabouts, roads, high school students are saying they're going to block their schools. Some people will be striking. And of course, this is really just the beginning of what may become a very difficult September because a week later are actually going to be fully fledged trade union strikes. So we'll be seeing protesters come out on the streets and it's going to prove difficult for Emmanuel Macron.

15:57And what exactly are they protesting about? They're protesting originally against François Bayrou's budget decisions, but more broadly against the way the government and politics is being run because people feel they're not being listened to. The Jules Jeunes were a real mix. And of course, they came from the ground up without any concerted leadership. And people were from all parties. And there's a similar element to block everything, except that some trade unions and parties on the left think, well, this time we're going to get on board quite early. So there is an element from the left as they are coming on and organising.

16:33However, much of it began originally in the same way as the Julie Jaune, as people who were non-political simply organising themselves because they felt they couldn't make ends meet and they were fed up and felt they weren't being listened to. And who is making gains as a result of this recent turbulence and the vote of no confidence this week? Are the far right doing well? The far right are doing well in the polls. They are topping the polls. But that doesn't mean that they would win an absolute majority if there was election tomorrow, because there's still a sense in France of people wanting to vote tactically to keep them back.

17:11But what is important, I think, is Marine Le Pen's far-right national rally is using this moment to harness this feeling that people want change. And they're also using it as a platform to continue their sort of image management campaign to prove that they are not this kind of chaos-causing outsider protest movement, which they've been depicted as in the past, a racist, jackbooted movement. They're trying to say, look, we're now, we're suited and booted, we're pretty well behaved in Parliament, and we want to show that we could govern like anyone else. That's their mission statement. And what they've been using this current budget issue for is to go directly to business leaders who were never usually their natural voters or natural backers and say, look, instability is really bad for the country.

17:58We're not the cause of it. These other guys, Macron, the centrists, have caused this. We could actually be the solution. And so they are really trying to position themselves in case of a snap parliament election, which is not what's going to happen right now, but could happen if another government falls, and also for the presidential election in 2027.

18:20Coming up, with less than two years of his presidency left, What can Emmanuel Macron do to steady the ship?

18:38Angelique, last night President Macron chose François Bayrou's replacement as Prime Minister. Who was it and what can you tell us about what his approach to the current situation might be? Well, Macron has chosen his loyal ally, Sébastien Le Cornu, who was the French Defence Minister. Now, Le Cornu has a background on the right, and this choice shows that Macron does not want to make compromise. He's sticking with a loyal member of his own camp. He's not making any concessions to the left. He's protecting his own economic pro-business policy, not compromising on his tax cuts to companies, and not really changing much.

19:18So opposition parties have attacked this choice as a stubborn refusal to compromise. And the next presidential election in France is due to take place in 2027. Emmanuel Macron has ruled out calling another snap election, but there are still calls for him to resign. How much political pressure is he under now? Well, if you look at the polls, about half French people want him to resign. He absolutely won't resign. He doesn't have to resign. He's not obliged by anything in the constitution to resign. And he says, look, there's too much at stake on the international stage for me to resign now, which means that he would continue until the very last day of his second term.

20:01So if he appoints a prime minister who can hang on until then, and that's not certain, they could be failed. If he can, And then we will have local elections in spring of 2026, which will be important. But the next big one will be the presidential election in spring of 2027. And just finally, is the centrism of a leader like President Macron the wrong thing for France right now? Or are there bigger political problems at play here? I think from over here in the UK, it can seem that France is stuck in this sort of endless loop. a big reform being announced, then the streets erupt in protests. That's followed by resignations and yet more political upheaval.

20:46All the while, while those big economic problems that you've described go unresolved. And even Emmanuel Macron, with that huge support when he was voted in in 2017 and all his political ambition, haven't managed to break through that gridlock. In your view, is there a way to break out of this cycle and what might that look like? I think it's not that straightforward actually because we've had under Emmanuel Macron's presidency there's been a constitutional mechanism which has been used a lot which was to force through certain policy and certain legislation including attempted budgets without a parliament vote for example the pension changes to raise the pension age were pushed through without a parliament vote and it's not so much a simple question of how do we do reforms how do we change things how do we transform the way France works.

21:37What is really an issue now is democracy. How do we bring people on board? How do we make sure that we can pass legislation without having to push it through without a vote? And so I think the biggest challenge now is bringing people on board with politics because they're really, really mistrustful. Anjali, thank you. Thank you. That was Anjali Chrysippus, The Guardian's Paris correspondent. My thanks again to her, and you can keep up with all her coverage over at theguardian.com. That's it for today. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff. The producers were Eleanor Biggs, Ivor Manley and George McDonagh.

22:16Sound design was by Ross Burns and the executive producer was Homa Halili. We'll be back tomorrow.

22:28This is The Guardian.