For France’s Le Pen, it’s Barnier now, maybe Macron next

PARIS — Marine Le Pen has two big aims, her critics say: to cause chaos and bring down Emmanuel Macron.

The dramatic events of recent days, as the French political system has ripped itself apart and brought the European Union’s second-largest country to one of the most serious crisis points in its modern history, would suggest her opponents are right.

Since beleaguered Prime Minister Michel Barnier took office in September he has arguably handed the far-right firebrand much of what she’s dreamed of for years — institutional respect for her National Rally party, a seat at the top table, and the opportunity to turn policy into law.

But none of that has proved enough. She wants more.

So, barring any last-minute surprises, Barnier and his government, having only been in power for three months, will on Wednesday fall victim to a no-confidence vote and earn the dubious distinction of serving the shortest term in the history of the modern French republic, which was established in 1958.

The French system works in two layers, with the government and prime minister controlling domestic day-to-day affairs and the president having a powerful, overarching role. This is the prize Le Pen hankers after —she’s run run unsuccessfully for it on three occasions and plans to take another shot in 2027.

The no-confidence vote has arisen over the government’s failure to convince Le Pen to back a budget that would have injected €60 billion into state coffers through tax hikes and spending cuts to address France’s spiraling deficit. Despite a series of concessions to address her concerns, Barnier’s team believes she repeatedly moved the goalposts.

Her interest was to making French politics more chaotic, they think.

Leaving France without a government would, after all, trigger a political crisis, expose the country to financial turmoil and potentially pave the way for a new prime minister who could be even less favorable to her party.

“Le Pen’s conditions were constantly changing,” as they discussed the budget proposal, said a conservative member of Barnier’s government, who was granted anonymity because of the politically sensitive nature of the discussions. “Sunday, she gave a 17th different version of what her conditions were. The prime minister responded Monday, and once again, that wasn’t enough.”

In an interview with newspaper La Tribune published Saturday, Le Pen seemed to indicate that it would take only a concession on drug prices or pensions for her to give Barnier a second chance. One day later, she demanded both.

“When you see that such consequential efforts were made but were deemed insufficient, you have to wonder if all that wasn’t just a pretense, and that their mind was already made up for another reason,” the cabinet member said.

Which brings us to Macron.

Le Pen’s real motivation, some believe, is to force the president himself — the centrist embodiment of everything she abhors — to step down.

So far she’s stopped short of formally calling for him to quit, but has far from dismissed the idea.

“Our constitution is clear,” she said on Monday. “In the event of a serious political crisis, the president of the republic has three options. Reshuffle [of the government], dissolution [of the government] or resignation [himself].”

So with the first two options already exhausted, it’s clear what she sees as the ultimate outcome.  

But not so fast, Macron said on Tuesday evening. “I was elected twice by the French people,” he said. “I am extremely proud of this, and I will honor their trust with all my energy until the very last second of my term to serve the country.”

Power base

Should Macron step down, it would be a truly seismic moment for France, where presidential elections aren’t due for another two and a half years and no president in the modern republic has resigned apart from Charles de Gaulle after the violent 1968 riots.

Such a dramatic move would resonate with much of Le Pen’s National Rally’s base however. A poll released earlier this week by the conservative outlet CNews showed that 62 percent of respondents believed the French president should resign if Barnier is ousted. Among National Rally voters, that figure climbed to 87 percent.

“Our voters are upset with the government’s attitude,” said a National Rally parliamentarian. “People don’t want us to censure Michel Barnier, they want us to censure Emmanuel Macron.”

And that assessment goes beyond the National Rally. Left-wing lawmakers, who after beating Macron in his July election form the largest bloc in parliament, have been calling on the President to resign ever since he ignored them and tapped the center-right Barnier in September instead.

On the right, at least one voice has started calling for Macron to throw in the towel. Jean-François Copé, a respected French conservative voice who initially pushed his party, Les Républicains, to work with Macron, said last week that a new presidential election was “the only solution” to the current crisis.

While Macron’s exit wouldn’t resolve the parliamentary gridlock — the French lower house, the National Assembly, is divided into into three roughly equal blocs, left wing, right of center and far right, which refuse to cooperate — it would, it’s supporters argue, provide a democratic reset and allow the new president to start fresh.

More to the point, as far as Le Pen is concerned, it might give her the greatest opportunity of her career.

Sarah Paillou contributed to this report.