{"id":404577,"date":"2025-09-07T06:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T06:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/404577\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T06:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T06:27:10","slug":"frances-political-crisis-reveals-deep-rift-between-the-people-and-their-politicians-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/404577\/","title":{"rendered":"France\u2019s political crisis reveals deep rift between the people and their politicians | France"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the French government faces likely collapse<\/a> in a confidence vote on Monday, plunging the eurozone\u2019s second biggest economy and key diplomatic power into a domestic political crisis, Jonathan Denis, a 42-year-old a bank manager and health rights campaigner, was concerned about the terrible impact it will have on France\u2019s dying and terminally ill.<\/p>\n

The centrist president Emmanuel Macron<\/a> had promised assisted dying and improved palliative care<\/a> would be the biggest social reform of his second term but the bill, which had been scheduled to go before the senate next month, now risks being delayed once more by the unpredictable revolving door of four prime ministers in just over three years.<\/p>\n

\u201cSick people who are suffering and want a form of assisted dying because they can\u2019t cope, will find this catastrophic \u2013 if they have the money, they\u2019ll have to travel to Switzerland, if they\u2019re physically able, they\u2019ll go to Belgium or people will violently take their lives, which unfortunately is often the case in France<\/a>,\u201d Denis said.<\/p>\n

Denis\u2019s father, a laboratory technician in rural eastern France with terminal cancer, chose to end his life through illegal, clandestine euthanasia in 2008 \u2013 \u201cI was plunged into grief while having to keep the secret about how he died,\u201d Denis said. Now he leads the campaign for assisted dying and palliative care, as president of the Association for the Right to Rie with dignity. It is a sign of France\u2019s troubled and patchy health service that 20 d\u00e9partements across France don\u2019t even have a dedicated palliative care unit. This has come to symbolise how Macron, despite his diplomatic efforts on the world stage, is facing political deadlock at home.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the centrist French prime minister Fran\u00e7ois Bayrou<\/a>, a 74-year-old tractor-driving southwestern politician who calls himself a consensus-builder, is expected to be ousted in a confidence vote, which will bring down his minority government after only nine months. The previous prime minister, the rightwing former Brexit negotiatior, Michel Barnier,<\/a> lasted only three months before he too was brought down by parliament last December.<\/p>\n

Fran\u00e7ois Bayrou poses on the TV set before an interview with French journalist Lea Salame on 4 September. Photograph: Ludovic Marin\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

On the surface, the reason for Bayrou\u2019s fall is the budget<\/a>. His unpopular \u20ac44bn (\u00a338bn) debt-reduction plan, including scrapping two public holidays and freezing most welfare spending, was widely rejected across the political class. He knew parliament would impose a sanction on him over it this autumn, so he chose to jump first.<\/p>\n

But the French political crisis goes much deeper. It is about the damaged relationship between the people and their politicians, which looks likely to sour the country\u2019s politics until the 2027 presidential election and beyond as the far right remains a potent force. \u201cThere is a broad anger towards political leaders who are seen as not bringing any benefit to the people \u2026 who are seen as playing more for their political future than the country\u2019s,\u201d said Mathieu Gallard, research director at Ipsos pollsters.<\/p>\n

A majority of Assembly members will vote against the government, according to their party leaders <\/p>\n

288<\/p>\n

Source: Assembl\u00e9e Nationale and press reports<\/p>\n

A Verian poll for Le Figaro magazine<\/a> this weekend found only 15% of French people trust Macron to resolve the political crisis. The president, as head of state with authority on foreign policy and national security, directly appoints a prime minister to run domestic affairs. But there is no obvious, consensual figure to replace Bayrou. Any new pick from Macron\u2019s centre or the centre-left could face a similar ousting. The president could instead call a snap parliamentary election but this is less likely, and any vote could be inconclusive. \u201cNothing shows that in an election there would spontaneously be a majority of left or right which would fix the problem,\u201d said Luc Rouban, of the Cevipof political research centre at Sciences Po university.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the far-right the National Rally is using the time to build support among France\u2019s business community, which is increasingly open to it amid worries over the country\u2019s instability. Edwige Diaz, a National Rally MP in Gironde in the west of France, had been meeting business leaders in Bordeaux and canvassing voters. She said: \u201cBayrou\u2019s confidence vote is seen by our supporters as a source of hope.\u201d The party was preparing in case of a new election, she said: \u201cAnd this time, we have the firm intention of winning it, which would mean that potentially, four weeks from now we could be in power.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his Yvelines constituency west of Paris, Benjamin Lucas, a leftwing MP for the small party, G\u00e9n\u00e9ration.s, which is linked to the Greens, was canvassing at markets and preparing election leaflets in case a snap election was called. In last year\u2019s parliamentary election, he beat a far-right candidate in his constituency when the left formed an alliance to block the far-right across France, but that left alliance is under strain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis crisis, and the anger French people are feeling, is feeding the far right,\u201d -Lucas said. \u201cSo we\u2019re in a very risky situation \u2026 Either the left is united and it can stop the advance of the far right and also win an election, or we\u2019re divided \u2026 and there\u2019s a fear of France having a far-right government one day, which would shake all of Europe.\u201d He said it was wrong to think a far-right win in France would be shortlived. \u201cLook at [Italy\u2019s] Giorgia Meloni, who is strongly installed in power, and [the US president] Donald Trump, who was re-elected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The root of the French political crisis goes back to Macron\u2019s much misunderstood decision to call a snap election last June. When he was elected president in 2017 he had a large parliament majority for his pro-business, pro-Europe stance, but on re-election in 2022 he fell short of an absolute majority, limiting his ability to pass legislation. So he decided to make a sudden gamble on trying to win back the national assembly in a snap legislative election last year. But he called the vote at a very risky time when his largest opponents, Marine Le Pen\u2019s far-right the National Rally \u2013 who he had called racist, xenophobic and dangerous to France \u2013 were at their highest ever point after winning European elections<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Marine Le Pen, stood next to Jordan Bardella, delivers a victory speech on the night of the 2024 European election results. Photograph: Chang Martin\/Sipa\/Rex\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

The campaign was divisive and the results were inconclusive: a hung parliament split between three groups. A left alliance won the most seats, but fell far short of a majority. The far-right National Rally won the most votes and became a force to be reckoned with, but did not have a majority. Macron\u2019s centrist grouping lost seats but were still present.<\/p>\n

What resulted was came to be known as the \u201ccoalition of the losers\u201d and has badly damaged trust in politics in France. Macron did not choose a prime minister from the left, which had the largest number of seats, or the far right, which had the largest number of votes, but instead chose Michel Barnier, from the traditional right, Les R\u00e9publicains, whose party had a tiny showing. A government was formed from a mix of Macron\u2019s diminished and unpopular centrists and the small traditional right, and continued under Bayrou. It came to symbolise power being given to those who came last. The voter turnout last year was the highest for decades, but people felt the result was ignored.<\/p>\n

The price is still being be paid for this, not just with Bayrou\u2019s predicted fall, but with a protest movement next week known as Block Everything, which could mean roads and businesses barricaded amid street demonstrations, which will be followed by union-led hospital and rail strikes in coming weeks. The government fears a re-awakening of the gilets jaunes <\/a>(yellow vest)<\/a> anti-government protest movement in 2018 and the 2023 demonstrations<\/a> against Macron\u2019s increase to the pension age.<\/p>\n

A protester wearing a French Revolution era-themed costume during a 2023 protest against pushing pensions reform through parliament without a vote. Photograph: AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Sofia Tizaoui, 17, who heads the USL lyc\u00e9e students\u2019 union said high schoolers would also be out blockading schools. She said young people were worried about their education and making ends meet but also democracy: \u201cEmmanuel Macron did not respect last year\u2019s parliament vote, and so the feeling of resentment had been growing long before the budget became an issue,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Many of the protesters organising online have spoken of economic injustice. While France\u2019s strong social security safety net had traditionally counterbalanced the gaping inequality in some of its European neighbours, research has shown poverty in France is increasing, while the growing concentration of inherited wealth has sparked comparisons to 19th-century France.<\/p>\n

Marion Carrel, sociology professor at the University of Lille, said there was a feeling in France of \u201cthe little people versus the big\u201d, which gave a \u201cpre-revolutionary\u201d atmosphere to the preparations for protests, even if she felt not everyone struggling to make ends meet would take to the streets. \u201cThere\u2019s a strong anger at not being listened to, and a feeling that politics is going nowhere,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Macron has ruled out resigning \u2013 there is too much at stake on the international stage with Ukraine and the Middle East. But calls for him to go have come not just from the left\u2019s Jean-Luc M\u00e9lenchon, but also from some on the more traditional right.<\/p>\n

Politicians on all sides feel their only hope is to harness the anger. B\u00e9atrice Bellay, a Socialist MP on the island of Martinique, where there have been protests over the high cost of living, <\/a>with prices far greater than in mainland France, said: \u201cThere is something in the general atmosphere, which is not just French, but almost global: a kind of cold anger because people see an ultra-free-market capitalist system crushing people and making their life all about survival. There\u2019s a sense of injustice and that something is wrong with the system.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the French government faces likely collapse in a confidence vote on Monday, plunging the eurozone\u2019s second biggest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-404577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115161599159752806","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}