In Brussels on the evening of Sunday, July 7, among the thousands of diplomats and civil servants working in EU institutions, the French were inundated with messages from their acquaintances. Almost all of them, of all political persuasions and nationalities, were delighted to see the Rassemblement National (RN, far right) relegated to third place in the Assemblée Nationale, behind the Nouveau Front Populaire (left) and Ensemble (Macron’s centrist coalition). “We have avoided a major regression and paralysis of the European Union,” said Macron-supporting MEP Pascal Canfin, who recalled that an RN government in France, one of the founding countries of the Union, could, with its Italian, Hungarian, Slovakian and Dutch allies, have blocked a number of EU decisions.
For all that, the French political situation continues to worry Europeans. “We’ve gone from the crisis of the empty chair to that of the wobbly chair,” said Yves Bertoncini, a specialist in European issues and professor at the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris. There is no majority in the Assemblé Nationale, where the RN has gained yet more seats, France is entering a period of great uncertainty and, in a year’s time, Emmanuel Macron will once again be able to dissolve the Assemblée Nationale. Fabienne Keller MEP (Renew, center) calls on France, which does not have a culture of compromise, to draw inspiration from the European Parliament, where “we have been working for a long time on the basis of compromise with all [the] forces [that range] from the republican right to the social-democratic left.”
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“On Ukraine, defense, trade and industrial policy, there are converging points of view, from Les Républicains [LR, right] to the Parti Socialiste [PS, left],” which could enable France to continue to assert itself on the European stage,” said Jean-Noël Barrot, junior minister in charge of Europe. But there is one subject, and not the least, which is divisive, and which a technical government will not be able to manage, given its structural importance for the country: the return to sound public finances “and the sustainability of our social model,” said Canfin.
Specter of an economic crisis
With a deficit and a debt respectively of 5.5% and 110.6% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023, France is due, in the next few days, to be subject to a European procedure for excessive deficit. By October 15 at the latest, it will have to present the Commission with its plan for a return to within the Maastricht criteria, which stipulate that the budget deficit must remain contained below 3% of national wealth and that public debt must not represent more than 60%.
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Publish date : 2024-07-10 01:29:15
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