Macron maintains power and ignores warnings from the country

As France faces motions of no confidence, Macron says he will not resign and maintains a firm stance in the face of the fragmented parliament

In a demonstration of an almost monarchical disconnection with the political reality of his country, Emmanuel Macron, directly from Egypt, sends a message to France: he will not resign. The declaration, packaged in statesmanlike rhetoric about “continuity and stability”, sounds more like a threat than a guarantee. So, what stability is Macron talking about? The stability of five prime ministers in just two years? The stability of an ungovernable parliament, fractured into three irreconcilable blocs by its own center-right politics?

The inconvenient truth for the Élysée Palace is that the political crisis plaguing France is not an accident, but a project. It is the direct result of a president who, elected without a clear parliamentary majority, insists on governing as if he had one, pushing an agenda of austerity and cuts that the majority of the political spectrum, from the left to the extreme right, repudiates. Refusal to resign or call new elections is not an act of service, as he claims; It is an act of stubbornness on the part of those who refuse to accept the verdict of the legislative polls.

The situation of the recently reappointed Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, is emblematic of this institutionalized chaos. Holder of the record for the shortest term in the recent history of the Republic, with a mere 27 days, he now faces two motions of no confidence before even warming up the chair. His promise of “renewal and diversity” in the new cabinet turned out to be hollow, with the same faces remaining in the main positions, signaling that the government’s strategy is not dialogue, but persistence in error.

The bone of contention, as always in recent years, is social justice. The socialists, whose position could seal Lecornu’s fate, have put conditions on the table that expose the core of the Macronist project: the repeal of the brutal pension reform and the creation of a tax on billionaires. These are popular demands, which echo the sentiment of the streets, but which are treated by the government and the right as heresy. The threat from socialist parliamentarian Philippe Brun is clear: support is conditional on the abandonment of Article 49.3, the infamous provision that allows the executive to pass laws without a vote from parliament – ​​an anti-democratic juggernaut that has become the hallmark of Macron’s governance.

In this scenario, the tactical convergence between the extreme left of Unsubmissive France and the extreme right of the National Rally to overthrow the government should not be seen as an unholy alliance, but as the measure of the rejection that Macron inspires. Jordan Bardella’s phrase, “I am not sectarian… France’s interest today is to ensure that Emmanuel Macron is detained”, is devastating. It reveals that, for a significant and ideologically opposed portion of the country, the biggest obstacle to the functioning of the nation is the president himself.

Meanwhile, the new cabinet’s mission is to present yet another budget of cuts. France, with the biggest deficit in the eurozone, is under pressure to tighten its belts. But which belts? Those of workers, forced to retire later? Public services, which are increasingly precarious? The succession of prime ministers (Barnier, Bayrou, Lecornu) overthrown or threatened by the budget issue shows that parliament refuses to be a mere rubber stamp of the Élysée’s austerity policies.

By blaming the “political forces that decided to vote against François Bayrou” and those that “sought to destabilize Sébastien Lecornu” for the “confusion”, Macron commits an act of intellectual dishonesty. He is the architect of this mess. He, who fragmented the political scene, who refuses to build bridges and who prefers imposition to negotiation.

His defiant stance in Egypt, while France seethes, is the image of a leader isolated in his own certainty. The phrase “serving means serving, serving and serving” is empty when service is intended for an economic agenda that deepens inequality and an exercise of power that ignores democratic representation. France does not need a monarch who refuses to abdicate. You need a leader who listens to his parliament and his people. By clinging to power, Macron does not guarantee stability; he prolongs the agony of a crisis that has his name and surname.

With information from Reuters*