Macron plays Pontius Pilate on debt crisis

The administration of the resurrected Sébastien Lecornu survived two votes of censure in mid-October thanks to what can only be described as a political bribe.

To secure support from the Socialist Party (PS), Mr Lecornu suspended the controversial 2023 pension reform, which sought to raise the standard retirement age from 62 to 64.

 The problem with political bribery, as history shows, is that those who accept it always return for more. Whatever the PS demands next time to sustain the government may prove even less affordable.

Within days, the consequences became apparent in international finance – a world that many French politicians, and indeed many French citizens, prefer to imagine has nothing to do with them.

France’s credit rating downgraded

Standard & Poor’s, one of the leading credit rating agencies, downgraded the quality of French debt from AA- to A+, citing the government’s retreat on pensions. The agency warned that, following the capitulation, France’s debt-to-GDP ratio could reach 121% by 2028.

Two other major agencies have already issued downgrades. The result is that France will now have to pay higher interest on its borrowing to compensate investors for increased risk – draining public finances further. Unless public spending is reduced, the alternative will be higher taxes, which in turn will further depress wealth creation in a country that desperately needs it.

Macron washes his hands of the crisis

When Mr Lecornu unexpectedly agreed to resume the prime minister’s office he had vacated just days earlier, he said he did so out of “duty”. It is almost possible to feel sorry for him.

President Emmanuel Macron, however, appears to have a rather different conception of duty. As the chaotic process unfolded to find someone willing – and able – to govern France, he reached the point in his personal odyssey where he chose to imitate Pontius Pilate: it was not his job, he claimed, to resolve the crisis.

When it suits him, Mr Macron adopts the image of a monarchical head of state, standing aloof from the “grim business” of politics. Yet under the Fifth Republic, he remains constitutionally required to take decisive action when the need arises – such as appointing a viable prime minister or calling new parliamentary elections.

Instead, he has chosen to perpetuate instability by reappointing a weak ally who feels personally obliged to serve, and then stepping back.

The Fifth Republic is at breaking point

Mr Macron is the guardian of the constitution of the Fifth Republic, yet he refuses to operate it according to its logical limits. The constitution offers him two clear choices.

He can either call fresh parliamentary elections, in the hope of forming a government capable of confronting economic reality, or he can resign. Kings dislike abdicating, and he appears similarly unwilling to do so.

If he finds the constitution unworkable, he could attempt to design a Sixth Republic – but neither he nor the current parliament has the mandate or authority to embark on such a project. It is precisely because it is too late for such fundamental reform that he ought to go, and take the present parliament with him.

No de Gaulle waiting in the wings

Historians are already drawing parallels between today’s instability and the paralysis of the Fourth Republic. As one observed, at least when things collapsed in 1958, Charles de Gaulle was ready to restore order. Who, today, could play that role?

This crisis exposes the failure of France’s grandes écoles, which have long boasted of producing a superior class of bureaucrats and politicians. They appear to lack the courage, will or imagination to introduce the French people to economic reality.

The state is still too large

To an outsider, the scope for cutting the French state – well beyond welfare and benefits – is immense. The country has around 35,000 town halls (mairies), many serving communes with fewer than a thousand people. What is the point? Well, all those who work in them have votes.

Far too many people in France live, in one way or another, unproductively off the state. Those who prefer it that way might reflect on this: would they rather make the hard decisions themselves, or wait until the International Monetary Fund imposes them? The latter, history suggests, would be far more brutal.