French government set to fall

Barring a dramatic turn of events, the Barnier government will fall tomorrow or Thursday. A new reprieve could only come from a last-minute retreat by the RN (National Rally) or the PS (Socialist Party). But these two parties would have nothing to gain – and a lot to lose.

[Originally published in French on 3 December at marxiste.org]

Since Marine Le Pen confirmed her intention to vote for censure [in response to Barnier’s decision to force through an austerity budget without a vote], right-wing journalists who deplore this have been making all sorts of contradictory accusations. Some accuse Michel Barnier of having given too much to Marine Le Pen – for nothing, in the end. Others, on the other hand, blame the government for not having given everything to the RN.

In reality, the outcome of the haggling of the last few days did not really depend on what the government was prepared to give up to the RN. The ‘red lines’ put forward by Marine Le Pen were so many excuses to justify a decision that had already been taken on the basis of a simple and decisive observation: a very large majority of RN voters – 67 percent, according to a recent poll – want the Barnier government to fall.

As we explained at the founding congress of the Revolutionary Communist Party (PCR) this weekend: "This is the central element in the calculations of Marine Le Pen and her clique. It's her real ‘red line’ – and not, as she claims, the ‘purchasing power of the French’. The RN is not prepared to upset a large section of its electorate on behalf of the Barnier government. (...) According to a recent poll published by Le Monde, 25 percent of RN voters consider the NFP (New Popular Front) to be the real opponent of the Barnier government. This is what the RN leadership cannot accept indefinitely.”

We added: "After the fall of the government, the pressure will heavily increase on the most hated man in the country: Emmanuel Macron. The leaders of the RN and the FI – among others – will call ever louder for Macron's resignation and the organisation of early presidential elections before a new general election. And this demand will find a broad echo among the mass of the population. According to a recent poll published by BFM, 63 percent of those polled want Macron to resign if the government falls."

For a detailed analysis of this new stage in the crisis of the French capitalist regime, we refer the reader to the introduction to our discussion on ‘Perspectives for France’ from our National Congress this weekend. In it, we put this political crisis into its general context: that of a profound crisis and an irreversible decline for French capitalism.

After the fall of the government, the pressure will heavily increase on the most hated man in the country: Emmanuel Macron / Image: No 10, Wikimedia Commons

In the coming days, negotiations will be underway to form a government capable of ‘holding together’ in the context of growing pressure from the financial markets on the French public debt. This rules out from the outset the possibility of Macron choosing to appoint Lucie Castets or any other figure representing the NFP as a whole to the Matignon [residence of the French Prime Minister]. As was already the case this summer, Macron will turn to someone whose intentions to carry out austerity are crystal clear.

But since the same causes produce the same effects, the next government, whoever it is, will be as fragile as Michel Barnier's.

With regard to the next government and the struggle that the labour movement will have to wage against it, we don't have to change a comma – apart from the name of the Prime Minister – from what we wrote last September:

"The extreme fragility of this government is obvious. It is likely that the RN will not want to leave the NFP indefinitely as the only declared ‘opponent’ of Barnier and his henchmen. Problems could also arise from within the government’s camp, against a backdrop of many and varied presidential ambitions. However, the labour movement must not wait for the parliamentary scaffolding to collapse under the weight of the economic crisis and its own contradictions. Young people and workers need a solid battle plan to bring down the government clique themselves – Macron included – and replace it with a government that defends their interests.

"We've said it time and time again: one-off ‘days of action’, like the one on 1 October, have never made a single bourgeois government move back an inch. The Left and the trade union movement must prepare a vast movement of renewable strikes involving a growing number of sectors. We're not saying it's easy to do; we're saying it's the only way to win.

"What should replace the ‘government of the rich’? The front page of this issue of Révolution answers: ‘a workers’ government’. It's a slogan that is both general and precise. It does not say which political forces would lead such a government, but it does say which social class would be in power. This is the central question. Only the working class, which creates all the wealth, can lead the other oppressed strata in a decisive struggle against the bourgeoisie. Only the workers in power can put a definitive end to counter-reforms and austerity. Only they can expropriate the big capitalists and reorganise society on the basis of rational and democratic economic planning.”