The sleepy minority French government of François Bayrou fell on September 8. Bayrou was the reactionary prime minister who recently expressed sympathy with those who “felt we were being flooded with migrants”.
Since June last year, the left has had the biggest grouping within the French National Assembly, but President Emmanuel Macron is not prepared to respect democracy and appoint a left PM.
Bayrou is the second right-wing PM to fall since the election. The only big change he managed was abolishing environmental regulations on some insecticides. After eight months in office, he finally went too far, presenting a vicious budget that planned more than €40 billion (A$70 billion) in cuts and to abolish two bank holidays.
Faced with the threat of a “Yellow Vest”-style revolt in the streets by the new “Blockade Everything” mobilisation, with mass strikes and parliamentary motions of no confidence, Bayrou preferred to call a vote of confidence for September 8. Bayrou hoped that either the Socialist Party (PS) or the far-right National Rally (RN) would shore up his government as they had done before, but they didn’t.
Macron immediately announced that Sébastien Lecornu, loyal Macronite and army minister, would be the new PM. Lecornu is a well-known champion of bloated military budgets, an opponent of gay marriage and a fan of discreet meetings with fascist Marine Le Pen.
The radical left France Insoumise (FI), along with the Greens and Communists, is demanding Macron resign or be impeached. According to a poll by Conservative newspaper Le Figaro, 64% of French people want Macron out now.
The PS was obliged by popular pressure last year to make an electoral pact with forces much further to the left, a pact that succeeded, after the most dynamic left election campaign for decades, in keeping the fascist RN out of government.
But now, PS leaders are sweet-talking Macron. They begged him to name a PM from among them, and when he didn’t, declared how honoured they felt that Macron had phoned their chief, Olivier Faure, an hour before nominating Lecornu!
The PS is not saying whether they will vote out the new government or agree to a non-aggression pact: they are still hoping for crumbs. “We will listen to the new PM, but we won’t do a belly dance for him”, said Patrick Kanner, PS leader in the Senate — but they are probably rehearsing dance moves as I write.
Raphaël Glucksmann, who led the PS slate at the last European elections, recently declared that he would never again ally with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s FI, even against the fascists. Communist Party and Green Party leaders are not as rotten as that, but they make sure they denounce the “extremism” of the radical left frequently.
An inspiring mass of actions were called by the new Blockade Everything networks on September 10, aimed at bringing Macron down. Dozens of motorways were blockaded, including ring roads around Paris, Bordeaux and Lyon; high schools, factories, hypermarkets and universities were barricaded, while 280 decentralised rallies were held across the country.
The Paris rallies were particularly noted for the crowds of dynamic high school students. Across the country, 80,000 police were mobilised, but the only “shocking” incident in Paris was the burning down of a Korean restaurant. After a couple of hours of showing the fire from every conceivable angle, broadcasters had to admit it was actually caused by a police teargas canister.
There were also strikes on September 10, even though the national Trade Union Coordinating Committee shamefully called a strike to start only from September 18. These are exciting times — hopefully workers, students and Blockade Everything mobilisations will build to a crescendo over the next 10 days.
This is a major crisis, and the RN fascists — who have 118 MPs — are hoping to gain from it. Their young leader, Jordan Bardella, is wearing posher suits and speaking more often of the “key role of business leaders”. His organisation also denounced the September 10 rebellion.
This week, Macron is clowning around on the international stage and demanding billions of euros for more spending on war, while the mass media are full of scaremongering about France’s economy being on the brink of collapse, screaming that only a compromise between left and right can save our beloved country. Talk shows have found their favourite debating topic for the week: “Is the real problem greedy boomer pensioners?”
Millions of people know that the true problem is the 1%. The September 18 strikes and a rising movement in high schools could be the beginning of a movement that can force Macron out.
[John Mullen is a revolutionary socialist in the Paris area and a supporter of the France Insoumise. His website is randombolshevik.org.]