Eventually, even the blind man can read the handwriting on the wall. Despite his stubbornness, Emmanuel Macron knows how to read, and recognizing that the end was nigh, he finally gave his handpicked representative on earth, Sébastien Lecornu, “carte blanche” to cajole, seduce, divert, and succor the Socialists in the hope of winning their forbearance. In the end, two promises sufficed: first, the massively unpopular pension reform law, so agonizingly won by Elisabeth Borne, will be “suspended” until after the next presidential election; and second, Lecornu renounced the use of Art. 49-3. The Socialists–first Vallaud, now Faure–declared victory and promised not to vote for immediate censure. Thus Lecornu II will live longer than the 24 hours allotted to Lecornu I.
In exchange, the new PM warned, the Assembly will have to pay the cost of the €2 billion euros that suspension of pension reform will cost. And he did not agree to impose the Zucman tax or reinstate the ISF, proposing instead a lame compromise riddled with exemptions (as Zucman explains).
Meanwhile, Retailleau has promised to expel the four LR members who agreed to serve as ministers in the new government. LR has already been reduced to a shadow of what it once was; this new purge may shrink it to the point where Retailleau has no choice but to follow Ciotti into Hades: alliance with the RN.
What will become of the other former mainstream party, the Socialists, is less clear. Can it revive itself by this latest compromise with the rapidly fissioning center? Or has it now exposed its flank to the continuing salvos from the relentless Mélenchon? I listened to Mélenchon on France Inter yesterday, browbeating his interviewer Benjamin Duhamel. Mélenchon is surely the most disagreeable politician on the hustings these days. I suffered for poor Duhamel, who had to endure Mélenchon’s constant below-the-belt jabs. To me, he (Mélenchon) sounds increasingly desperate, as though he can feel his last opportunity slipping through his fingers. He has bet everything on his ability to dislodge Macron, but Macron’s skin-saving surrender has deprived Méluche of his public enemy no. 1. In the parliamentary infighting of the coming months, Mélenchon will be as much of a bystander as Macron. The Macron presidency has ended in utter failure, sealed by the suspension of the pension reform which was the centerpiece of its reformist policy, and all that remains is a holding action that will continue until the next presidential election. I think most French voters will welcome the impending calm, even if it proves to be temporary.