I heard a brief newsradio headline that France’s Prime Minister Barnier and his entire cabinet lost a no-confidence vote when opponents on the left and right joined forces. And then I haven’t heard anything else until I found this.
Shouldn’t we be more concerned about this?
I’ve never been fond of referring to a PM and their Cabinet as “the government”. It makes headlines about the end of a premiership sound much more dramatic and hyperbolic than they need to be.
If I hear “the government has collapsed” I expect to be able to head down to the Walmart and loot me a new stereo.
It’s standard parliamentary language, in Westminster style parliaments and European style. I’m afraid I don’t see the need to change our political vocabulary to respond to US concerns.
Depends. What were the policies of the old government that the other parties objected to, and who’s likely to replace them?
This is a standard feature of parliamentary systems. It does seem to indicate political instability in France, but how serious that is, I can’t gauge from the outside. We’ll have to wait and see if Macron is able to put together a new government quickly.
Here’s a good outline:
It was a budget fight. The Barnier government tried to use a clause in the Constitution that allows a budget to be implemented without a final vote in the Assembly. The Assembly rebelled and relied on a provision in the Constitution that allows for a non-confidence vote. Left-wing and right-wing parties united to pass the non-confidence vote.
As @Northern_Piper said, this is standard language in most parliamentary systems. When the governing party has formed a minority government, they’re always subject to defeat by a motion of non-confidence. The consequence of this is no more and no less than the fact that an election must be called, the result of which may put that same party right back in power, or some other party, or some new coalition. It’s just the parliamentary system working as it should.
That’s the way they are constitutionally defined.
The government can fall, and be replaced, at short notice without a shot being fired or an angry mob.
You lot recently held a plebiscite on the question of good governance, justice and corruption … and you lost.
We’ll stick to our ways thank you. Your ways don’t even work for you.
Ninja’d by Northern Piper and wolfpup
Getting back to the OP question: BBC says “Grave concern.”
I’m aware. I was simply quipping on how “government” is used to mean what we call “the administration” in America, whereas “the government” means the ENTIRE apparatus of state, not just the politicians at the top.To my ears “the government has collapsed” implies anarchy in the streets.
Carry on.
Hold my birra, please. Italy has had 69 different governments since World War II.
Nice!
Now that, in my estimation, is much more concerning than the normal fall of government in a parliamentary system. A continuing series of unstable minority governments and fragmented coalitions that can’t get anything done that afflicts two of Europe’s major powers would be concerning at the best of times, but so much more so in light of a united Republican front in America across all three branches of government. Especially when the executive branch is headed by an uninformed and pathologically temperamental demagogue.
I don’t think the world has seen a dynamic like this since 1939. Not that Trump has territorial ambitions; every situation is different. But he has many other ambitions with global implications, and one wonders what there is to stop the insanity that is about to take the helm of America.
IMHO, the extreme difficulty in the American system of ridding itself of a corrupt administration – along with the immense power with which the president is entrusted, which the Supreme Court recently strengthened even more – is a huge weakness in the American system.
There are supposed to be checks and balances, instituted by Founders who fundamentally distrusted government and even distrusted some of the basic precepts of democracy. So, for instance, Congress is bicameral, House and Senate.
But both are currently dominated by lunatic Republicans. The vote of the people for a president is supposed to be vetted by an Electoral College as a final check to prevent some deranged lunatic from ascending to the highest office in the land. How’s that all working out for you?
Of course there’s always the Supreme Court, the third branch of government and the final arbiter – at least that’s completely impartial and can be relied on to maintain stable governance, right? 
I’ve long had the same problem. I recall how when I was a kid I came across the factoid that Italy had had something like 30+ governments since WWII, and got the impression that it was some hellhole that had a massive civil war every other year or so.
The problem here is that there must be a minimum of 12 months between parliamentary elections in France–while the last election was only 5 months ago–so they need to form another government from the existing parties. The obvious possibility is a prime minister from the left wing including parties from the left wing and the center in coalition–but Macron seems very reluctant to do this.
The US is the outlier and the minority re this usage, in the context of this discussion. We’re talking about France so “the government” is correct. I was very briefly confused by the usage when I relocated to Europe from the States, but then I understood and adjusted. It’s not difficult.
Back to the topic: Living in a country next to France, this political uncertainty is pretty concerning, but it is not at the level of catastrophe, not yet. It’s part and parcel with the general anti-incumbency mood. In France specifically this manifests as broad frustration with the professional political class without any clear consensus on how this should be fixed. Hence, instability while new centers of political gravity are found.
France is very unlikely to embrace and elevate a political arsonist to a position of real power, as apparently just happened in Romania; it’s just not in their culture. Le Pen and her allies have been agitating on the margin, and they’ve accumulated enough of a base to be self-sustaining, but the country overall keeps looking at what they’re offering and saying “no thanks,” so they’re left knocking on the door. However, there isn’t a clear strategy to oppose and deflate them, solving the problems that fuel their support; resistance is spread too thin, across too many competing ideas and their advocates. So the populist ideologue sits on the sideline like a scary throbbing tumor, threatening — but so far, in France, unable — to spread its cancer more widely.
More from the BBC on what triggered the non-confidence motion:
This is the thread-winner right here:
The no-confidence vote, in and of itself, is not a large deal.
What it says about the political fragmentation and polarization in France is huge. For France, for the EU, for NATO, and for the rest of the world. France matters a bunch more than its mere population or GDP might suggest.
The last election produced a parliament without a clear majority. As in the last few years of the Fourth Republic, the forces in parliament are strong enough to obstruct each other but not strong enough to effect much substantive change: so there is political instability and stasis at the same time.
Barnier, a fiscal conservative, was trying to reduce an ongoing fiscal deficit and increasing debt (breaching France’s commitment to the euro); but, as everywhere, people don’t like either higher taxes or reduced expenditure.
My understanding is that he is reluctant to do this because of LFI leader Melenchon, who “many in France view as an antisemitic radical,” according to Reuters. I have no idea if that’s true, but this is not the only article I read over the summer that indicated that Melenchon himself was the “problem.” But his party won the most votes, so what are you gonna do?
Which sums up why PR has not taken hold in some countries with first-past-the-post electoral systems for their parliaments.