To seriously analyze the French situation of the moment and try to find meaning, it is probably necessary to go back to an issue that few people talk about: the 2025 budget.
In a well-run country, such as France, the budget for the following year is prepared during the summer and presented to Parliament at the end of September. Its preparation begins with an internal reflection of the Public Accounts Directorate, followed by the first arbitrations by the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister and the sending by the latter, around June 15, to each minister, of what is called «letters of framing» which set out the envelopes within which each department is to maintain its expenditures.
This calendar perhaps explains, consciously or unconsciously, the decision to dissolve the National Assembly: it is not implausible that the first drafts of the scoping letters showed that the country’s economic and financial situation was so bad that the 2025 budget would require, to control the deficits, tax increases or budget cuts much higher than those announced so far. Therefore, it is not implausible that the “clarification” referred to by the President of the Republic was really about who would have the courage to present the country with such a budget; and which would not have and would show a budget deficit much higher than that of today, already very deteriorated.
Nor is it unlikely that the main aspirants to the leadership of the country also had the intuition of this situation.
This would explain why Marine Le Pen, (who knows, moreover, that she has no interest in the failure of her lieutenant Bardella in the exercise of power, nor in her success that could steal her last chance of winning the next presidential elections), would prefer that his party not have the responsibility to introduce and implement the 2025 and subsequent budgets until 2027.
This would also explain why Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his few direct followers, (which I do not confuse with all the members and elected officials of his party), implicitly do everything they can to ensure that the RN wins, with the hope of thus plunging the country into a situation of ideological, social and financial chaos, which could benefit, in their minds, only at the other extreme, that is, themselves.
As for the supporters of the reasonable, that is to say all the other parties, including most of the Republicans and elected officials of the LFI, they do not make their voices heard too much on these subjects.
In total, in this improvised campaign where everyone arrived without a serious program, no one, among all those who pretend to fight for power, is really in a hurry to exercise it. And that’s why everyone goes there with impunity, with their improvised promises and feigned anger.
Indeed, to exercise power in such a situation, it will not be enough to divert attention to any of the four traditional scapegoats: previous rulers, Europe, markets and foreigners (not the same strangers for each other). It will really have to be recognized loud and clear that the moment is very difficult, that France is the only European country cumulating the four fundamental deficits (budget, primary budget, trade balance and balance of payments).
We will have to get out of illusions, face reality, take very seriously ecological and geopolitical issues, become more fiscally and socially just, save our public services, and in particular the school and the hospital, fine stowaways (mostly wealthy French citizens) from a poorly funded social transfer system. It will be necessary to dare to say that the time has come to be just and rigorous, lucid and altruistic, to debate between people of goodwill and good faith, diverse opinions on whether there are points of convergence around the values that define the identity of this magnificent country. This will necessarily pass, in the coming years, to save democracy, by a coalition ranging from the republican right to all the left parties, to a few individuals who have played too much with fire. Without forgetting to take into account the concerns of security and purchasing power legitimately felt by the voters who will have turned to the National Rally.
Let us take advantage of this particular period to finally, truly, have a government that takes into account all the anxieties and hopes.
j@attali.com
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