French President Emmanuel Macron has unveiled his new government almost three months after a snap general election delivered a hung parliament.
The long-awaited new line up, led by Prime Minister Michel Barnier, marks a decisive shift to the right, even though a left-wing alliance won most parliamentary seats.
It comes as the European Union puts France on notice over its spiralling debt, which now far exceeds EU rules.
Among those gaining a position in the new cabinet is Bruno Retailleau, a key member of the conservative Republicans Party founded by former president Nicolas Sarkozy.
Just one left-wing politician was given a post in the cabinet, independent Didier Migaud, who was appointed as justice minister.
France’s public-sector deficit is projected to reach around 5.6% of GDP this year and go over 6% in 2025. The EU has a 3% limit on deficits.
Michel Barnier, a veteran conservative, was named as Macron’s prime minister earlier this month.
Members of the left-wing alliance, the New Popular Front (NFP) have threatened a no-confidence motion in the new government.
Far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon called for the new government to “be got rid of” as soon as possible.
On Saturday, before the cabinet announcement, thousands of left-wing supporters demonstrated in Paris against the incoming government, arguing that the left’s performance in the election was not taken into consideration.
If anything it shows that authoritarians will choose what keeps them in power rather than what’s best for the people. The left didn’t get the majority, it was roughly a 3 way split between the left, center-right and far-right. The government would’ve been with the left and center-right or center-right and far-right. The former would’ve been better because it would’ve represented a bigger portion of the voters but the latter was also viable from the perspective of democracy.
However the choice was largely up to Macron (and his party) and he’s definitely more autocratic than democratic. His decision is what ultimately threw the left under the bus.
Tldr: Democracy is fine, authoritarianism is the issue.
What is shows is that western implementation of the concept of democracy is such that it does not represent the interests of the working majority. Western democracies are class dictatorships where the capital owning class makes the decisions and dictates to the workers. This is precisely what we’re seeing happening in France right now.
Meanwhile, authoritarianism is a largely meaningless term. Every government holds authority by virtue of having a monopoly on legalized violence. What actually matters is whom the government is accountable to. When the working majority has no tangible leverage then their voice can be easily ignored. That’s why Macron is able to do what he is doing. The issue is with the way the system is implemented.
TLDR: democracy is fine, western implementation of the concept is not
You want to expand on that? Considering Ensemble and National Rally (with its far right allies) make up 301 seats out of the 577 seats (and for the lazy, 289 is the minimum to have the majority). If Ensemble had allied with NFP they’d have 339 seats which is more than with the far-right, but not significantly more. Had the left “won” I don’t see how you couldn’t make the same argument saying it’s bullshit.
Define tangible leverage.
Interesting to see where this non-western fine democracy exists.
I’m not sure what you want me to expand on specifically. It’s obvious that the government in France does not represent the interests of the public. This is why France has constant public unrest incidentally.
Ability to hold the government to account for their actions. The regular people have no practical way to exercise influence over the government. Simply being able to vote is meaningless as the election clearly showed.
Two obvious examples for you.
China
Cuba
So public unrest is an indication that the government doesn’t represent the interest of the public? Seems like your examples of fine democracy don’t represent the interest of the public either, protests on the rise in China and protests in Cuba.
Where are their tangible benefits that you defined so vaguely you might as well have not defined them at all? Please specifics this time, not this vague BS.
Nah, it’s public unrest coupled with continuously declining living conditions and the government ignoring the demands from the people that shows the government isn’t working in the interest of the public.
Meanwhile, here are some tangible benefits for you to chew on.
The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015, while real incomes of the poorest half of the US population actually declined during the same time period. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23119/w23119.pdf
From 1978 to 2000, the number of people in China living on under $1/day fell by 300 million, reversing a global trend of rising poverty that had lasted half a century (i.e. if China were excluded, the world’s total poverty population would have risen) https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/China’s-Economic-Growth-and-Poverty-Reduction-Angang-Linlin/c883fc7496aa1b920b05dc2546b880f54b9c77a4
From 2010 to 2019 (the most recent period for which uninterrupted data is available), the income of the poorest 20% in China increased even as a share of total income. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.DST.FRST.20?end=2019&locations=CN&start=2008
By the end of 2020, extreme poverty, defined as living on under a threshold of around $2 per day, had been eliminated in China. According to the World Bank, the Chinese government had spent $700 billion on poverty alleviation since 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/world/asia/china-poverty-xi-jinping.html
90% of families in the country own their home giving China one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. What’s more is that 80% of these homes are owned outright, without mortgages or any other leans. https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/03/30/how-people-in-china-afford-their-outrageously-expensive-homes
China used more concrete in 3 years than US in all of 20th century https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2014/12/05/china-used-more-concrete-in-3-years-than-the-u-s-used-in-the-entire-20th-century-infographic/
China also built 27,000km of high speed rail in a decade https://www.railjournal.com/passenger/high-speed/ten-years-27000km-china-celebrates-a-decade-of-high-speed/
This is what life in a country with a government that represents the interests of the people looks like.
Nice to see how little you’re paying attention.
The articles I linked both said declining living conditions are the reason of protests. When it comes to Cuba the government suppressed the unrest with force. China protests have worsened in the last year. Looking at how fast you responded you probably didn’t even open the links. Nevertheless, your criticism applies to those countries as well
And I accidentally misspelled tangible leverage. I never meant to say tangible benefits and I think context-wise it should’ve been obvious I meant the term you originally brought up. But you only skimmed my comment for keywords so you could dump your prepared copy paste because there’s no way you found those examples with sources within 6 minutes, you had those ready to throw out.
I guess you’re just a mouthpiece afterall.
I’ve literally linked you a bunch of sources showing how living conditions in China have been improving consistently over many decades. Your article isn’t a counterpoint to that.
Meanwhile, Cuba is under draconian blockade by the US, and despite that having an obvious impact on the standard of living every poll shows mass support from the public for the government in Cuba. France, on the other hand, has no such excuse. It’s one of the richest countries in the world that’s been plundering the Global South through colonialism.
You’re such a sad troll.
🥱
First of all, do you understand how time works? Your bunch of sources are years old, my source is months old. Maybe years ago everything is was fine, now it’s not.
But more importantly, you said civil unrest is an indication of a bad democracy and you brought up those two countries as examples of good democracy. Your excuses might explain why there are unrest, but they don’t invalidate the unrest. There’s still unrest in those countries which means a) unrest is not an indicator or b) those countries are not examples of good democracy.
What if I’m dyslexic? What if my phone auto corrected it and I didn’t notice? Why did I continue talking about it like I meant the other thing? It was an honest mistake on my part, but what is your excuse? Anyone actually paying attention would’ve questioned how did we get to “tangible benefits”. In fact that’s how I noticed my mistake in your response because unlike you I was actually paying attention to what you were saying. How do you excuse ignoring the wider context of what I was saying and focusing solely on the one thing that’s out of place? I can’t think of a single excuse where you don’t come out as a bad actor, which is probably why you’re name calling me instead of accepting fault. The sad troll here is you, getting caught with your pants down.