{"id":413445,"date":"2025-09-10T15:25:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T15:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/413445\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T15:25:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T15:25:13","slug":"bye-bye-bayrou-bonjour-insurrection-how-frances-instability-could-boost-the-far-right-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/413445\/","title":{"rendered":"Bye-bye Bayrou, bonjour insurrection: how France\u2019s instability could boost the far right | World news"},"content":{"rendered":"

One in, one out. On Monday night, \u201cBye-bye Bayrou\u201d parties were held around France as Fran\u00e7ois Bayrou, the now ex-prime minister of France, was ejected in a landslide parliamentary confidence vote<\/a> against his plans for austerity. Bayrou, the third French PM to resign in a year, had lasted just nine months. His predecessor, Michel Barnier, was toppled after just three.<\/p>\n

Twenty-four hours after the government\u2019s collapse, the revolving door was opened again and Emmanuel Macron appointed a successor<\/a>: the 39-year-old defence minister and one of the president\u2019s closest allies, S\u00e9basian Lecornu. This was an uncharacteristically swift attempt by Macron to fill the vacuum and quell a mood of insurrection in the country. But it may not be enough.<\/p>\n

Much depends on how extensively the call for a nationwide shutdown of transport and other services by a new grassroots protest campaign called Bloquons Tout! (Block Everything!) is heeded by the public.<\/p>\n

Close ally \u2026 S\u00e9basian Lecornu, pictured left with Macron, has been named as new French prime minister. Photograph: Mohammed Badra\/EPA<\/p>\n

The new PM took office amid street clashes with police<\/a>, burning bins, barricades and go-slow operations around the country. Some regional train services are down. The main trade unions have separately called for mobilisations and protests on the 18 September.<\/p>\n

Organised anonymously online over the summer, and later supported by some leftwing parties, Bloquons Tout!, like the gilets jaunes anti-government movement of 2018<\/a>, is leaderless. Analysts, though, are wary of drawing close comparisons with the gilets jaunes. \u201cThe movement\u2019s ideological and sociological profile is difficult to establish,\u201d said Pierre Purseigle, lecturer in modern European history at the University of Warwick. \u201cThe political situation is evolving and we may know within weeks if Bloquons Tout! is a flash in the pan and or the harbinger of a mass social movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a climate of anxiety about the cost of living and frustration at the decline of public services, any new protest movement has plenty of anger to draw on at the moment. But Purseigle said: \u201cAnger may not be the most problematic manifestation of current frustrations. More worrying is the gradual disengagement with the political process, a diminishing faith in democracy as a system. If Bloquons Tout! fails to coalesce into a mass and sustained social movement, this may well be why.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why is France in such a mess?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A clash over public spending, as politicians try to curb France\u2019s high level of debt, is the immediate flashpoint for the latest turbulence<\/a> \u2013 failure to pass austerity budgets the reason the last two PMs have been ousted. The national debt is running at 114% of GDP<\/a> and the budget deficit of 5.8% of GDP<\/a>, nearly double what is permitted for eurozone countries.<\/p>\n

But this crisis is also political, a function of a much deeper malaise in the relationship between the people and their politicians, explained Angelique Chrisafis<\/a>, the Guardian\u2019s Paris correspondent. This malaise worsened after Macron\u2019s response to last year\u2019s snap elections and could blight French politics even beyond the 2027 presidential election, helping Marine Le Pen\u2019s far-right party to gain ground.<\/p>\n

The political scientist Alain Duhamel, interviewed in Le Monde<\/a>, compared France\u2019s systemic instability to the \u201ccrise de regime\u201d that led De Gaulle to set up the Fifth Republic in 1958. \u201cThe question posed now,\u201d Duhamel said, \u201cis that of the survival of our political system.\u201d<\/p>\n

In naming Lecornu as prime minister, Macron could be brewing fresh trouble: the president is again defying pressure to appoint a premier who has the backing of the left<\/a>. Leftwing parties jointly came out on top numerically in last year\u2019s election. But to the fury of leftwing voters, Macron appointed the conservative Michel Barnier. The political equation does not seem to have changed much.<\/p>\n

As a centre-right figure, Lecornu risks the same fate as his predecessors as he tries to pass a budget by year\u2019s end. Growing clamour for a wealth tax is becoming a politically totemic issue. And in a gridlocked parliament, it is far from certain he can balance public fears about austerity against Macron\u2019s pro-business agenda.<\/p>\n

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Will the far right make gains from this?<\/strong>Marine Le Pen, next to Jordan Bardella, on the night of the 2024 European election results. Photograph: Chang Martin\/SIPA\/Rex\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

The shape and direction the current upheaval takes could be decided on the boulevards \u2013 and online \u2013 if Macron refuses to negotiate with the left, and if today\u2019s protests escalate. Either way, the crisis in France could reverberate around Europe. The French economy is the eurozone\u2019s second biggest. France has a leading role on the global stage in rallying support for Ukraine<\/a>. Macron, who runs foreign policy, is in a war of words with the US over French recognition of Palestine. Beyond simply distracting Macron at a volatile geopolitical juncture, France\u2019s unending wobble could have a longer term spillover effect. The crisis is, as the Guardian\u2019s leader column noted<\/a>, \u201ca gift to Marine Le Pen\u201d. Support for the anti-immigrant Le Pen party, National Rally, is running at about 33%, and a far-right\/conservative coalition looks increasingly plausible \u2013 particularly, Purseigle said, if there is further fragmentation on the left.<\/p>\n

A far-right surge in France would be the domino effect of this saga that other mainstream European leaders must be dreading.<\/p>\n

\u2018A large-scale provocation\u2019<\/strong>A Polish police officer near an aerial vehicle fragment, after Russian drones violated Polish airspace in an attack on Ukraine. Photograph: Polsat News\/Reuters<\/p>\n

An alarming and potentially significant escalation in the Ukraine war is still being decoded. Poland and Nato air defences shot down Russian drones that entered its airspace on Wednesday morning. Our report has Donald Tusk\u2019s stark warning <\/a>and Jakub Krupa is monitoring developments on our live blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The incursion looks like a deliberate provocation, analysts say. According to Gabrielius Landsbergis, the former foreign minister of Lithuania, there have been five drone incursions into Poland in recent weeks that the government in Warsaw chose not to respond to, in order to avoid escalation. \u201cThe Russians have been testing the waters, probing for Nato\u2019s red lines and trying to get to a point where this becomes normalised for public opinion,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is destabilising but it is also a message to Europeans to think: \u2018Our governments can\u2019t stop Russia. But maybe if we stop helping Ukraine, we\u2019ll be safe.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWe, especially on Nato\u2019s eastern flank, are like frogs being boiled.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul Taylor, a member of the European Policy Centre\u2019s defence\/security project, said Russia\u2019s \u201ctesting\u201d of Nato has escalated as Kyiv\u2019s allies step up military support and discuss security guarantees including \u201cboots on the ground\u201d to defend any ceasefire. \u201cAlthough Poland has said it will not deploy troops to Ukraine, this could be Putin trying to send a signal to the Europeans in general to back off,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Russian calculation could be that this will serve as a warning \u2013 that will scare a fraction of European public opinion into getting out to demand \u2018peace now\u2019 on their territories.\u201d<\/p>\n

To receive the complete version of This Is Europe in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One in, one out. On Monday night, \u201cBye-bye Bayrou\u201d parties were held around France as Fran\u00e7ois Bayrou, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-413445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115180701260678284","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413445","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=413445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}