A political earthquake took place in France. For the first time in over sixty years, the National Assembly of France has voted for no confidence in the current government, which automatically means that Prime Minister Michel Barnier and his subordinates must resign. But this is not all: it appears MPs have seriously set their minds to get at the Republic’s head, President Emmanuel Macron.
The pace of events was mind-blowing. Just a few days ago an advisor to Emmanuel Macron stated: ‘Logically speaking, there is no point for the National Rally (Marine Le Pen’s movement) to start a political crisis’. One of the ministers from the just dismissed government said almost the same last week: ‘Leaders of the National Rally will not want to instigate the chaos’.
The Macronists’ confidence that they will once again manage to gamble on the contradictions between the left and the right and, especially, on the leftists’ antipathy to Marine Le Pen’s and Jordan Bardella’s movement, this time let the president’s supporters down. It turned out this was a blunder, not a reckoning. Right after Marine Le Pen announced that her party would vote not only for its own proposal on the government resignation but also for the draft no confidence motion proposed by the left, maths came into play. And a simple count of votes irrefutably showed that if the left and the far right joined together, it will be enough to dismiss Barnier’s government, even more than enough.
Overall, December 4 became a truly historic day for the French media. Presenters on all channels were gushing this was an outstanding moment, with a landmark voting taking place to make history. A reporter of a popular BFMTV channel showed halls and corridors of the Palais Bourbon overcrowded with cameramen, journalists and sound engineers and announced that the press service of the National Assembly could not tell him the exact number of accredited journalists for the first time. Public tribunes were packed full. Those from the press who could not find a vacant seat were sent to the video room to watch the live broadcast.
Specific voting aspects were discussed: unlike in some other countries, only ‘in favour’ votes are counted in France and the voting procedure is that only MPs ‘in favour’ cast name ballots, which are then counted. They remembered the only previous confidence vote in 1962 during the time of Charles de Gaulle. At that time, MPs voted for the resignation of the prime minister Georges Pompidou, but de Gaulle used his right to dismiss the parliament and could finally keep Pompidou’s office. When it comes to Pompidou, he eventually became president, and art fans know a Paris museum bearing his name very well.
Well, definitely there will be neither museum of Michel Barnier nor him holding president’s office, and Macron cannot dismiss the parliament to protect him: having used this right this year, the president must now wait until at least summer 2025. When Barnier just came into power and was taking over from Gabriel Attal, he cracked a funny joke that Attal had not held the PM office for a long time.
Barnier shouldn’t have joked like this about his predecessor, because he himself broke all records having been in PM office for just 91 days. And Marine Le Pen called his government ‘ephemeral’ speaking from a tribune: ‘The moment of truth has come putting an end to an ephemeral government’.
For more than two hours, leaders of parliamentary groups discussed, or, rather, proved to their voters how specifically they intend to vote and why. Typical French colourful rhetoric mixed with accusations against the president and his supporters, calls not to support the no confidence vote, which would bring chaos and disorder to the country, and verbal attacks against the forthcoming joint voting of recent bitter rivals.
As Vice President of the National Rally Sébastien Chenu put it, voting for the no confidence motion jointly with political rivals, the New Popular Front, does not mean their alliance at all. ‘We can reach one and the same conclusion for different reasons’, said Chenu. It was promised to announce the voting results at 20:25 local time and they became known on time indeed. 331 MPs voted in favour of the resignation, which meant it shall take effect.
In about a minute, Mathilde Panot, the leader of the left parliamentary faction France Unbowed, approached the press to give a long speech about this historic day. Calling Barnier’s government illegitimate (as it did not want to fully consider leftists’ interests) and, like Marine Le Pen, an ‘ephemeral’ one, she reiterated that the only way out of the emerged political deadlock would be to have Emmanuel Macron resign and conduct a snap presidential election.
‘President must leave’, said Mathilde Panot. In her speech, she also plainly hinted that MPs of the National Rally represent people and people’s will and that their decisions must not be questioned by anyone. She actually publicly announced that the parliament, not the president, like it was earlier, must have the central place in France’s political system.
Well, so far, not all representatives of the left forces share her opinion, all the more so with Gabriel Attal, leading the Macronist faction, hastily trying to build a coalition with the left making its members promise not to support the no confidence vote.
Not everything is that plain about the right too. In an interview to TF1, Marine Le Pen assured the audience that after the no confidence vote, she has nothing against working with someone to be appointed Barnier’s successor. And the right-wing politician Éric Zemmour even noted that the MPs wanting to tame ‘Macron’s pack’ reached the opposite.
‘They have just put him back to the face-off circle, noted Zemmour. – He will decide to appoint a right or a left PM on his own. He will decide if he shall resign or remain in his seat until the last day of his office. He will decide when to dismiss the National Assembly. And France will suffer and wait in the meanwhile’.
Well, so far, Macron decided to make a public declaration at 8 pm next day. Knowing him, it is possible to predict what he will be speaking about. His words will roughly be: ‘The homeland is at risk: evil right and left forces dealt a heavy blow to it and I will not let the French be impoverished due to the actions of some MPs; I will not resign, as people chose me and I must respect their choice. And I am not guilty of anything, Marine Le Pen is the villain’.
Well, of course, this statement will decide nothing, and Macron’s attacks will only irritate his opponents who have just felt real power. Contradictions existing between the parliament and the president of France do not seem insurmountable technically but are getting stronger every day because of both sides’ temper.
And if political foes at the National Assembly could unite once to oust the government, this means it will be easier for them to unite another time. For example, to get rid of Macron. Well, after Barnier, why not?