Can we imagine France without an effective government until May 2027, in an increasingly dangerous world where decisions vital to the country’s future can no longer wait? This is what awaits us, whatever the future scenario. And it may seem terrifying.
For the decisions to be taken over the next eighteen months are dizzying. There are at least ten of them:
- Will we see deficits and inequalities of all kinds continue to grow for another eighteen months, or will we act to reduce them?
- Will we allow recession to set in and unemployment to rise, or will we provide ourselves with the means for a policy of sustainable growth?
- Will we let the American and Chinese giants ruin French and European industry by flooding our markets with their cheap clothes, their agricultural products that don’t meet our standards, their devastating artificial intelligence applications and their electric vehicles, or will we react?
- Will we leave our education system adrift, or launch the major reforms that are needed?
- Will we give priority to fossil fuels, or maintain the fragile priority of sustainable energies?
- Will we take seriously current or looming conflicts, requiring a radical reversal of our military doctrines and weapons priorities, or will we continue to order the armaments needed for the wars of yesteryear?
- In the absence of a French voice, will we let the logic of the market continue to wreak havoc in Europe, particularly in agriculture and telecommunications, or will we move towards an industrial Europe by building continental giants?
- Will we stand idly by as our German partners gradually take control of European bodies, or will we make a strong, respected French voice heard?
- Are we going to let secularism continue to be called into question, or are we going to provide credible protection for teachers, who are at the forefront of this defense?
- Will we let racism blight our universities and our streets, and the gulf between different communities widen, or will we dare to adopt an ambitious policy of integration?
Whatever we do, over the next eighteen months, more decisions will be taken on these issues. While France is in a very weak institutional position, whichever of the four possible scenarios comes to pass:
- We would continue with this Parliament, with several very weak governments, in search of the lowest common denominator of an unlikely majority.
- After a dissolution, another equally divided parliament would also lead to very weak governments.
- After a dissolution, a new parliamentary majority would emerge, probably made up of the far right and a few allies. After the president’s resignation, a new president would be elected in the coming months. In all four scenarios, the state would be very weakened: In the first two scenarios, that of a hung parliament, the state will be, and already is, very largely paralyzed, unable to make the difficult choices demanded by the preceding questions. In the third scenario, that of cohabitation, the State would also be paralyzed: the President, stubbornly clinging to his prerogatives, would block the new majority’s desire to implement a different European and military policy, which, as far as we know, would be hostile to the German alliance and in favor of a Russian one. He would not, however, be able to impose his own, as European policy is now entirely intertwined with domestic politics. What’s more, in each of these three scenarios, for eighteen months, all the parties would be thinking only of preparing for the presidential elections in May 2027; they would be doing everything in their power, whether in power or in opposition, not to propose or take any decisions that would cause offence, nor to undertake any of the necessary reforms, after so many years of laxity and narcissism, contenting themselves with pandering to public opinion in all its anger.
And let’s not think that we’ll be able to make up for all this after May 2027: the important choices will have been made by others and imposed on France.
In the fourth scenario, in which the President would soon be forced to resign, his successor would immediately be on an ejector seat, because it would be thought that he too could be pushed out at the slightest storm. His voice would be no more audible abroad than that of a Prime Minister subject to the tyranny of the polls, and the institution of the presidency would be permanently discredited.
In these four scenarios, which are the only ones possible, the State will emerge from this presidential term terribly weakened. Our adversaries and partners will take advantage of our weakness to advance their causes. We can’t blame them: in politics, there’s never a truce; we shoot at ambulances. And France is a wounded man.
So, since none of the four scenarios is the right one, we can only hope that companies, trade unions, teachers, senior civil servants, healthcare personnel, regions, local councillors and community activists finally learn, for the first time in French history, not to expect everything from the State. Nor from a political class in perdition, which could perhaps, for the first time in 40 years, devote the next 18 months to reflecting on a long-term vision for the country and, when the time comes, propose complete and serious programs for the next elections. In keeping with French tradition and history, these programs should be based on opposition between a democratic left and right. We can dream.
Image:LP/Frédéric Dugit