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Macron works to end France’s political deadlock

​Marine Tondelier, of Les Ecologistes party, talks to journalists next to colleagues as they leave a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Dec. 10. They had met with the French president as part of consultations aimed at appointing a new prime minister.

Marine Tondelier, of Les Ecologistes party, talks to journalists next to colleagues as they leave a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Dec. 10. They had met with the French president as part of consultations aimed at appointing a new prime minister.

REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq
Willis Sparks
By Willis SparksDecember 10, 2024
Willis Sparks
Willis Sparks is a senior editor for GZERO Daily. He is also a Director in the Global Macro practice at Eurasia Group, where he has worked since 2005. He has made speeches on international politics on every continent except Antarctica. Willis holds degrees from Brown University, the Juilliard School, Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris. He also holds an honorary degree from the Moscow Art Theatre School. A native of Macon, Georgia, Willis has worked as a stuntman at New York's Metropolitan Opera. As a child, he declined an opportunity to spend an afternoon riding the Great American Scream Machine, a rollercoaster, with Ronald McDonald, for money. He has never regretted that decision.
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On Tuesday, France’s President Emmanuel Macron hosted a meeting with the leaders of center, center-right, and center-left political parties at the Elysee Palace in a bid to end France’s political crisis by building support for a new prime minister and a 2025 budget. Leaders of the far-right National Rally and hard-left France Unbowed were not invited, a decision that National Rally head Jordan Bardella says demonstrated “disrespect and a lack of elegance.” Those who did attend the meeting told reporters that Macron hopes to nominate a new prime minister “within 48 hours.”

France finds itself unable to form a government and pass a budget because Macron called an election for July that empowered both right- and left-wing hardliners with no political bloc winning a majority. France has no prime minister at the moment because these hardliners ousted Michel Barnier – who held his post for just 90 days – in a no-confidence vote. That’s the shortest tenure for any PM in the history of France’s Fifth Republic, which began in 1958.

For now, France’s Green Party says it won’t join a “national interest” government. The Socialists insist they will only support a left-wing prime minister, a non-starter for conservatives.

french politics macron barnier pm prime minister budget reforms france

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