'High-tension politics': As Barnier pushes ahead with high-stakes budget, 'will govt stand or fall'?

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00:00Well, to get a wider view on it all now, we can cross-lecture at Queen Mary University

00:03in London.

00:04Mr. Andrew Smith, thanks for being with us and your time.

00:07Can I start by asking you, how unusual or likely do you think it is to see the far right

00:15and the left team up to try and bring the Prime Minister down?

00:19Well, it's unusual in that we know how strongly they are opposed to each other in political

00:28terms.

00:29But ultimately, what they're trying to do is both to put pressure on the government.

00:34And while it seems unusual to see them kind of aligning together, I think what's more

00:38unusual is almost to see the government bending to the whims of the far right.

00:43At the minute, I think there's a real issue.

00:45The Barney government has this kind of big debate between expediency and decency.

00:51How much can it bend, how much can it give in terms of this negotiation around the budget

00:56to the far right without actually looking like it's in alliance and governing in alliance

01:01with the far right?

01:02We've seen already Marine Le Pen's party has made demands about dropping taxes on electricity.

01:08They're trying to make demands around kind of pensions, demands around all sorts of other

01:13things and medication, for example, which the government is trying to use as part of

01:18this kind of austerity drive to make savings.

01:21And we saw on Friday, of course, international markets like Standard & Poor's kind of maintained

01:26France's rating, but very much placed an emphasis on the fact that Barney had to deliver those

01:31promises of austerity.

01:32And already we can see international markets, the way that banks lend to France is starting

01:37to kind of pull apart from the way they lend to Germany, for example.

01:40And France is very much borrowing on the same type of structures as Greece.

01:44So we can see internationally there's a lot of pressure on this budget, but obviously

01:47domestically as well.

01:49There's a lot of sense that this budget needs to deliver because there's a huge amount of

01:53anger against the government in particular.

01:55Indeed.

01:56And as you say, a fine balance in how much do you concede and how much will your action

02:01strengthen or weaken the opposition parties in parliament?

02:05You know, Marine Le Pen, it is the strongest, the largest individual party in the French

02:10parliament now.

02:11Do you see this party, which for so long had been in the opposition, do you think it's

02:14now moving towards a position to be ready to govern?

02:18Well, it very much wants to cast itself as being, of course, the de diabolos, like detoxified

02:24and all the rest of it.

02:25But, of course, recently we've seen exactly the reasons that that toxification is really

02:30a detoxification is a mirage.

02:32Marine Le Pen, of course, standing trial at the moment.

02:35And we've heard about the possibility of her being excluded from politics when that trial

02:41rules next March.

02:44The corruption that's been accused, that kind of dirty politics behind all of it is

02:48a sign of what's to come with that type of party.

02:51And this is a real strategic thing from them as well.

02:54This is the maximum leverage they have over the government.

02:57This is the big moment when they can make their presence felt, the sort of the gravity,

03:01the pull they're exerting on the government's policies.

03:05And because, of course, if they join together, if they vote the government out, you need

03:08to put a new government together, might well rob them of that power to lean on the government

03:13at the same time.

03:14And so this is useful.

03:15It helps draw attention, political attention away from Marine Le Pen's trial.

03:19It helps exert more of their priorities on the government.

03:22And it helps kind of create this image of chaos in parliament, which I think is very

03:26useful, I think, to the far right in terms of leveraging and ratcheting up that tension.

03:32It's really a strategy of tension, I think, from the far right to try and impose themselves

03:37upon the governmental agenda.

03:39Because indeed, if, should Michel Barnier decide to push through this budget without

03:43a vote in parliament, and then we see the parties come together, the opposition come

03:46together to vote no confidence, France can't hold more legislative elections for another

03:53year.

03:54So, you know, how bad could it get for France then?

03:55They'd be left in stalemate.

03:56Well, it's a real challenge.

03:58We are at the moment trapped in the structures of the Fifth Republic, reliving a crisis from

04:03the Fourth Republic of cabinet instability, while many of its politicians sort of cosplay

04:09a psychodrama of the Third Republic of the extreme right and extreme left.

04:13Of course, the last time a government like this fell to a motion of censure was way back

04:17in October 1962, when Georges Pompidou, his prime minister for President Charles de Gaulle,

04:23fell.

04:24Of course, what happened then?

04:25De Gaulle dissolved the assembly.

04:26Macron has already done that.

04:27He's used that card already.

04:29A dissolution is not going to happen.

04:31What are we left with instead then?

04:32Well, you know, we know there are kind of provisions to try and kind of bump over the

04:37last year's budget.

04:38That'll have problems in terms of inflation, in terms of international obligations, in

04:43terms of Europe and so on.

04:45But likewise, the government will try to use, of course, 49.3.

04:48We know this very well.

04:49To pass it, that's what's going to open it up to the motion of censure.

04:52Down the line, there's the potential of what we know as Article 47, which might allow the

04:58government to promulgate a finance bill if it's been debated for 70 days without a vote.

05:05That's a challenge because if the government falls, bills should fall with it.

05:08There's a big debate around constitutional law in terms of that.

05:10But I think what we're seeing here is a stress testing of the Fifth Republic constitution.

05:15This is, I think, in part the result of governing by decree, that 49.3, of failing to build

05:22those alliances in the assembly, instead passing that debate to the Senate, where it's more

05:26favorable to the government.

05:28And this is really the difficulty of trying to govern with these types of tactics.

05:32We saw, of course, last Thursday, as debates raged into the late into night on Thursday,

05:38there was nearly blows in Parliament between a centrist and a socialist deputy.

05:42So this is high tension politics.

05:45This is really a moment of extreme stress.

05:48But we hear that Michel Barnier is zen-like at its center.

05:52So whatever falls, I feel Michel Barnier will try to present a calm face, try to push this

05:57through.

05:58And, well, I think there's a lot to come this week.

06:00And we'll know by Wednesday, one way or another, if this government will stand or fall.

06:05Indeed.

06:06And then, you know, even here in France, Andrew, before we let you go, some people are saying

06:09that it's not even Michel Barnier should be the one that should go, but Emmanuel Macron

06:14himself.

06:15Well, absolutely.

06:16The electoral kind of path to this is, you know, there is no possibility for a legislative

06:21election and people are clinging on to this idea.

06:24Maybe Emmanuel Macron would somehow resign and open himself up to a presidential election.

06:29Personally, I think that is extremely unlikely.

06:32Emmanuel Macron is under no compulsion to do so.

06:35The idea under the Fifth Republic of the president is that this sort of, you know, parliamentary

06:40mess beneath the president is meant to sort of insulate the president from this.

06:44So there is no kind of direct trigger that would say this.

06:47It would have to be an act of kind of like real kind of political attempt to kind of

06:52impose oneself and accept responsibility, et cetera, et cetera.

06:56But I think Macron will see this as being the problems of the prime minister.

06:59And as we know, the prime minister has a problem.

07:02You can always have another.

07:04So this is the difficulty, I think.

07:05The president, I think, very unlikely to open himself up to that type of vote until 2027,

07:10when he is actually, you know, constitutionally forced to do so.

07:14I think this is very much a problem of parliament and very much a problem for the prime minister.

07:19Andrew Smith, Queen Mary University, thanks very much indeed for joining us here on France

07:2224.

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