So there will be no Zucman tax, not even in watered-down form, but the principal questions remain: Will a budget be approved? Will the government fall to a censure vote? Will Macron be forced to dissolve the Assembly once again? Will he have to resign?
At the moment there are no answers. Everyone is disgusted with the continuing stalemate. The Socialists thought they had bought themselves some leverage by making a deal with Lecornu, but it wasn’t enough leverage to win them the wealth tax that they could have presented as a genuine victory. In addition to suspension of the pension reform, they got Lecornu’s agreement not to use Art. 49-3 to pass the budget, but this turns out to have been a double-edged sword. For technical reasons, if they abstain from voting to approve the budget now, the measure will likely fail, leading to the government’s fall and dissolution, which will probably leave them worse off than before; but if they approve the budget in order to stave off dissolution, they will be seen as complicit with the very unpopular Macron, who no longer commands even the allegiance of the party that his nominally his own.
Unfortunately for the Socialists, symbolic victories haven’t altered the actual balance of power in the legislature or brought them any closer to positions of real influence. They are reduced to the hope that they can wring another concession or two out of Lecornu before the moment of truth arrives. Meanwhile, Mélenchon’s attacks continue unabaated. The continuing impasse leaves many people even more alienated from politics than they had been, if such a thing is possible. I am just back from a visit to France, where the general attitude seems to be, “It will all end soon enough, and there’s nothing we can do in the meantime.” A former president has gone to jail, a prospective future one remains under sentence of ineligibility, and the antics of those supposedly in charge are less amusing than the theft of jewels from the Louvre. Meanwhile, Paris is blessed with an unprecedented number of blockbuster art exhibits: de La Tour at the Jacquemart-André, David at the Louvre, Sargent at the Orsay, Greuze at the Petit Palais, Berthe Weill at L’Orangerie. To judge by the length of the lines, art is trumping politics these days.
For further reflections on the capital I first visited 57 years ago, in the wake of May ’68, see this post on my Substack.