Bloggers note: ARE WE LOOKING FOR THE 6TH REPUBLIC WITH MARINE LEPEN
ONE MUST ASK
.................WITH TRANSCRIPT
..France's government has collapsed after a non-confidence vote forced Prime Minister Michel Barnier to resign. Andrew Chang breaks down how a series of events set in motion by President Emmanuel Macron led to this politically and economically fraught moment, and the uphill battle Macron now faces to get the country back on track.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42dIpVTzV04
of France's national assembly had two
choices vote to bring down the
government or abstain don't vote at all
hitting 288 would mean the government
collapses in the end they had 331 from
the left and the right a clear majority
for the first time in more than 60 years
the country's government has been ousted
so all of this has led to a couple of
big things one France's prime minister
resigned but two the president Emanuel
macron is as defiant as ever accusing
his opponents of acting against the
interest of the country and vowing to
build a new government from the ground
up except what escalates all of this to
crisis levels is that the country has to
figure out how to avoid economic
disaster because for years France had
already been driving towards a steep
financial cliff and despite reassurance
is from the president the steering wheel
to the car just popped
off the vote to bring down France's
government takes on a whole different
meaning when you understand how much
trouble France's economy is in right now
racked up debt France is in huge debt
spiraling debt first let's talk about
the country's debt 3.2 trillion and
Rising for reference that's more than
double what EU Reg population set as the
debt cap for its members 60% of GDP and
the comparison to Greece for a brief
time France's borrowing costs actually
exceeded those of Greece and that
economy has been scarred by crippling
debt for years France is currently under
a lot of pressure from the European
Union because of its spending and this
economic uncertainty translates into
planning insecurity for business and for
investors and this is very bad for the
economy to be clear when your economy is
being compared to the economy of Greece
you're in bad shape and let's talk about
GDP growth in France has been quite
stagnant if we look back to five years
ago there was the pandemic and then
there was the recovery but ever since
then and especially in the last two or
so years France has consistently fallen
short of the 2 to 3% growth most
economists agree is where a country
wants to be the debt is simply too high
and the deficit is too high um and in
order to bring those down bring the
deficit down France has to cut
expenditure and also would need to
increase taxes to some extent but here's
the problem in trying to solve this
issue the government made the debt
problem worse macron wants to spend 93
billion over the next four years to
tackle poverty in macron's first term he
was pushed by a sweeping protest
movement to put billions of dollars of
public money into people's pockets
minimum wage went up tax increases were
pulled
[Music]
away and when the pandemic hit now we're
talking hundreds of billions of dollars
spent to keep people whole for example
even though businesses collapsed
government money kept many private
sector employees on payroll at 70% of
their pay this was to prevent Mass
unemployment but may have had other
consequences one of them is how it can
turn a business into a so-called zombie
company getting just enough government
money to stay alive but not enough to do
anything but that so any kind of
subsidies that is important in crisis in
order to address liquidity issues is
important but once it's more than just
liquidity it prolongs healthy structural
changes in the economy as one former
European prime minister put it we need
to get off of all these subsidies at
some point otherwise we'll have a zombie
economy and today this artificial life
support has played a big role in the
layoffs we now see across a whole range
of sectors then a political gamble by
the French President would set in motion
a series of events that would ultimately
make everything
worse back in July when Emanuel macron
thought he could consolidate Power by
calling a snap the snap election the
snap election snap election he actually
just shot himself in the foot macron's
Centrist block came second not enough
for his gamble to have paid off marine
leen's far
right the national rally party only got
stronger winning many more seats to keep
them at Bay the left under the new
Banner of the N FR scraped together an
uneasy Coalition holding the most seats
but no majority and stuck in the middle
macon's centrists and this is where maon
had a problem he needed to appoint a
prime minister who in the French system
is basically in charge of everything
domestic including budgets the president
handles defense and Foreign Affairs
Michelle B was the eventual Choice
tasked with somehow finding a path
forward for the French economy and his
appointment though not most people's
First Choice given how fractured
Parliament was largely went through
because he was seen as capable I don't
think there was ever an issue with barer
himself he was quite a respected figure
by many political parties don't forget
that he was hailed uh for being an
excellent Chief negotiator uh for the
brexit agreement but that all ended when
the rubber really hit the road budget
time B's proposed budget was supposed to
recoup some 6
billion through taxes big taxes on big
business but also by cutting public
spending on things like pensions very
precious things like pensions the
standoff over this budget would go on
for weeks austerity Cuts in France tend
to be a tough pill to swallow so berer
went nuclear he used an article of the
Constitution to force through a piece of
Finance legislation without a vote in
Parliament he just kind of skipped over
everyone and said I'm just going to do
what I need to do and that ticked
everyone off well not quite everyone
maron's closest allies were still in his
camp but the left and the right joined
forces to say this government cannot
stand that's really at the core of the
issue this power play this political
power play this
depolarization of not only of the French
society but in particular in the French
Parliament and this power play leads to
Great uncertainty for the
economy all of this leaves Emanuel
macron with a very difficult next move
he can't call an election because the
Constitution forbids him from doing so
having just called one in July next July
he can call an election so that's a big
gap where France has no way of passing a
budget to get its economy back on track
my is clearly Under Pressure um um the
no confidence vote was primarily a no
confidence vote against him he has to
come up with a new prime minister with a
new government constitutionally that is
his task to appoint a new government and
he should do so uh quickly if maon
doesn't choose someone uh that at least
you know has some sort of majority
approval well then the MPS can just
again organize a no confidence vote and
then we're back to square one this
process of choosing a new M mcon says it
will only take days and he was pretty
defiant of those suggesting he should
resign this is where we're at France is
on the clock if it can't pass a budget
by December 20th emergency legislation
would just roll over the 2024 budget
into next year but there's a consensus
out there that you can't fix France's
current day problems with yesterday's
Solutions and until they figure that out
we have maon once again trying to pick
up the shattered pieces of a failed
election Gamble and a French economy
that is in really rough
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