Can Michel Barnier get his budget passed?

The budget will be the first challenge for the new Prime Minister. To achieve this, Michel Barnier’s profile meets several interesting requirements.

1. His 50 years of experience at all levels of politics, local, national and even European, will be useful in dealing with an ungovernable Assembly.
2. Just like his negotiating skills, which have been undermined since Brexit, Michel Barnier was able to maintain the political unity of 26 member states, which was not a foregone conclusion.
3. The European network built up over his years in Brussels will be very useful in passing on the pill of the French deficit to our neighbours.

These are important qualities, but the challenges that await him are also numerous. To be honest, the most difficult part is beginning for Michel Barnier.

The Savoys will have to form a government quickly and, above all, try to find a compromise majority in the Assembly. The great challenge facing Michel Barnier will depend on these discussions: the 2025 budget, which promises to be a real nightmare. All this in a hurry, since there are only three weeks left until the presentation of the text to the Council of Ministers.

Right to life, right to death.

And the lynchpin of these discussions, as Michel Barnier’s speech yesterday in Matignon showed, will be the RN. While the New Popular Front continues to focus on democratic usurpation and refuses any compromise, the National Rally becomes the de facto key group in the motion of censure.

Only the NFP will not be able to vote in favour of censure; with the RN the government will fall.

The equation is simple: Marine Le Pen now has an exorbitant power of life and death over the government, which is not the least of the paradoxes after having been the victim of the Republican front in the legislative elections.

Michel Barnier therefore deliberately responded yesterday to almost all of Marine Le Pen’s requests:

• Respect for all parties,
• defense of purchasing power,
• and fight against immigration.

Only proportional representation was not discussed, but it really was not the time.

The message was received with 5 votes out of 5 by Marine Le Pen, who indicated that she would not immediately present a motion of censure against the government that Michel Barnier will form, while indicating that she was waiting to see in terms of substance what the general policy would be. speech and how it would compromise the budget.

In the end, it is perhaps here that true cohabitation will develop: in the Assembly, between Marine Le Pen and Michel Barnier. Much more so than between Matignon and the Elysée.