Don’t put it past France’s Parti Socialiste (PS) to get aboard a sinking ship. Wednesday’s no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Michel Barnier over a social-security financing bill forced the collapse of a government that never had a parliamentary majority. But the vote was just as much a condemnation of the person who put him in charge: Emmanuel Macron, who handpicked Barnier in September to paper over his own camp’s defeat in the snap parliamentary elections this past summer. Once again, Macron is exposed — and at rock bottom in the eyes of the public, who hold him largely responsible for the political crisis that has gripped France since his brash dissolution of the National Assembly in June.
Yet just as the curtain falls on the veteran conservative Barnier, the Parti Socialiste shows signs of lending a hand to the president. It is mooted to join or at least provide its tacit support for a hodge-podge national unity government that would bail out Macron, who is expected to pick a new premier in the coming days. This would have the PS breaking ranks from the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP), the alliance of left-wing parties that also includes France Insoumise, the Écologistes, and the Parti Communiste Français (PCF) that emerged as the largest bloc in parliament in July.
The PS has been angling away from the NFP for some time. In November, PS stalwarts like former president François Hollande, elected to parliament in summer, began withdrawing support for Lucie Castets, the figure whom the left-wing parties had jointly proposed as their candidate for prime minister. In the lead-up to last week’s no-confidence vote, which the party supported, PS officials likewise raised the possibility of a “non-censure” pact with the…
Auteur: Harrison Stetler
