# The French government fell today (12/4/24). Does anyone care?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [December 5, 2024, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176 "2024-12-05T02:25:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2024, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/21 "2024-12-05T13:35:38Z")
Y’all need to talk 'Murrican. We caint tell the difference betwen a Prime Minister and a President over here. Heck, iffn our govern-ment collapsed as of’en as them there Euros, we’d be headin down to the Walmart and grabbin us some big screen TVs! Woohoo!!
---
### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2024, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/22 "2024-12-05T13:40:13Z")
> [@ShadowFacts](#):
>
> > [@PastTense](#):
> >
> > 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.
>
> My understanding is that he is reluctant to do this because of LFI leader Melenchon, who “[many in France view as an antisemitic radical](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/melenchon-divisive-supremo-frances-hard-left-poses-coalition-conundrum-2024-07-09/),” 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?
When noxious party leaders become an attractive feature of your electoral politics, not a bug fatal to that party’s electoral success, your country is in for a rough ride.
---
### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2024, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/23 "2024-12-05T14:01:36Z")
We had a thread as the elections that lead up to this occurred which included a very good analysis of why Macron chose as he did by @FrenchDunadan, and this penultimate post:
> [@2024 French legislative election](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2024-french-legislative-election/1002713/43):
>
> One wonders how long this government will last.
The answer of about two and a half months is not a shock.
The Right holds the strong hand now to my understanding. They were stopped in round two only by cooperation of the center and left that Macron subsequently poisoned.
I readily admit that French politics and how their system works is foreign to me. I know just enough to be very concerned about instability in general but in particular that this representing a further notch across Europe to the Far Right gaining more power.
---
### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2024, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/24 "2024-12-05T14:21:53Z")
> [@ShadowFacts](#):
>
> But his party won the most votes, so what are you gonna do?
FWIW my understanding is that his party did not win the most votes; they won the most _seats_. The center and the left cooperated, dropping candidates out strategically in the second round, forcing upon the right the equivalent of an electoral college loss. The right won the most votes.
---
### Author:  [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2024, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/25 "2024-12-05T14:26:29Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> FWIW my understanding is that his party did not win the most votes; they won the most _seats_. The center and the left cooperated, dropping candidates out strategically in the second round, forcing upon the right the equivalent of an electoral college loss. The right won the most votes.
Ah, yes, good correction - thanks.
---
### Author:  [@FrenchDunadan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrenchDunadan)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2024, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/26 "2024-12-05T20:28:49Z")
The Left (New Popular Front) is a coalition of: communists, ecologists, socialists and followers of Melenchon (LFI). All together they can align the most seats in the Assembly, but not a majority.
The far right (National Assemble) is the bigger party but has less seats than that coalition.
Macron’s party and allies come third in number but won’t ally with any of the two , for fear the Left will destroy everything Macron ever did and the Far Right is unacceptable.
The traditionnal Right was the lest numerous but ended being called to power with Barnier. That didn’t have a majority either…
He could count on the presidential party, but needed to appraise either the Left or the Far Right or face a “motion de censure”. He managed to do that during two months, giving numerous concessions left and right, but ultimately that wasn’t enough.
Problem is, anybody will now face the same predicament.
---
### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2024, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/27 "2024-12-05T20:33:06Z")
So which French pretender will take the throne now?
---
### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2024, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/28 "2024-12-05T20:39:21Z")
I tangentially follow French politics, this isn’t too surprising, the question was just “when.” Barnier was a sacrificial lamb.
> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> 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.
France isn’t a parliamentary country in the same sense that Canada is, or a secular parliament like Germany even. The PM is in more ways than one subservient to the President. Terminology is not wrong though, they can be “without a government” for the reasons stated just fine, even if the executive branch is whole.
Though this being France specifically, I’d expect guillotines nonetheless.
---
### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2024, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/29 "2024-12-05T20:44:15Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> FWIW my understanding is that his party did not win the most votes; they won the most _seats_. The center and the left cooperated, dropping candidates out strategically in the second round, forcing upon the right the equivalent of an electoral college loss. The right won the most votes.
Correct, and also it’s a coalition of which Mélenchon’s party is the largest in it, there are 3 dozen or so parties in that coalition, most of which are tiny and didn’t get electoral victories. And there’s lots of squabbling.
---
### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2024, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/30 "2024-12-05T21:45:36Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#):
>
> France isn’t a parliamentary country in the same sense that Canada is, or a secular parliament like Germany even.
True, but the French Constitution uses “Gouvernement” / “Government” to refer to the PM and Cabinet, in both the official French version, and the English translation provided by the Conseil constitutionnel. See Title III: The Government / Titre III: Le Gouvernement.
The French version uses the terms “responsabilité” and “censure”, which the English version translates as confidence and non-confidence motions. See arts 34-1 and 49.
Query: “secular parliament”? not familiar with that term.
[https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/le-bloc-de-constitutionnalite/texte-integral-de-la-constitution-du-4-octobre-1958-en-vigueur](https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/le-bloc-de-constitutionnalite/texte-integral-de-la-constitution-du-4-octobre-1958-en-vigueur)
> **[constiution\_anglais\_oct2009.pdf](https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/sites/default/files/as/root/bank_mm/anglais/constiution_anglais_oct2009.pdf)**
>
> 200.79 KB
---
### Author:  [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2024, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/31 "2024-12-05T21:57:38Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#):
>
> 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.
It was all over NPR this morning. Also the Washington Post.
[looks at the time of the OP] Maybe you just picked it up before they’d had a chance to check the story and write up their versions?
---
### Author:  [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2024, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/32 "2024-12-06T07:46:30Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#):
>
> So which French pretender will take the throne now?
Macron retains the throne. Which further sacrificial lamb gets to be his Prime Minister… Names I’ve seen mentioned are Bernard Cazeneuve (moderate Socialist and former PM) and François Bayrou (centrist).
> **[Bernard Cazeneuve](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Cazeneuve)**
>
> Bernard Guy Georges Cazeneuve (.mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}French: \[bɛʁnaʁ kaznœv\]; born 2 June 1963) is a French politician and lawyer who served as Prime Minister of France from 6 December 2016 to 15 May 2017. He represented Manche's 5th constituency in the National Assembly from 1997 to 2002 and again from 2007 to 2012, in ...
> **[François Bayrou](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Bayrou)**
>
> François René Jean Lucien Bayrou (.mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}French: \[fʁɑ̃swa bajʁu\]; born 25 May 1951) is a French politician who has served as Prime Minister of France since December 2024. He has presided over the European Democratic Party (EDP) since 2004 and the Democratic Movement (MoDem) since 2007. A centrist, he was a ...
---
### Author:  [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2024, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/33 "2024-12-06T08:19:22Z")
It should also be pointed out that the French political landscape has been dramatically altered in the past 7 years.
It used to be that there were only two parties that could have a realistic shot at power : the _Parti Socialiste_ and the rightists (under various names, but with more or less the same core of people, Chirac, Juppé and later Sarkozy), with the far-right as trouble-makers. The extreme-left was pretty much a joke.
Macron’s rise to power was a surprise since he was neither part of the PS, nor the right. It ended decades of predictability. Now, the right is only the fourth party in terms of representation and the PS only avoided total obliteration by joining the New Popular Front leftist alliance, where Melenchon, with his endless controversial, extreme declarations, is the one calling the shots.
Someone waking up from an 8-year coma wouldn’t be able to make sense of what has happened to French politics recently. The two parties that dominated the landscape for decades have practically disappeared and extremism from both the left and right has pervaded every single aspect of the political discourse.
---
### Author:  [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2024, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/34 "2024-12-06T08:48:47Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> Query: “secular parliament”? not familiar with that term.
Well, it makes for a great band name.
More seriously, I imagine it means a parliament in which God plays no part. No “under God” in the Constitution, for example. But I’m just guessing; I don’t know for sure.
---
### Author:  [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2024, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/35 "2024-12-06T11:08:38Z")
> **[Defiant Macron vows to stay on as French president and will appoint PM within...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/05/macron-vows-to-stay-on-as-french-president-and-will-appoint-pm-within-days)**
>
> President says he will remain in power until 2027, amid political turmoil following collapse of government
This article includes a pretty good overview (from an outside perspective) of the situation, the competing powers, and why things are so messy right now.
In a broad factional sense, you’ve got the left, the right, and Macron’s technocrats. This last lays claim to the center, but the others accuse him of not having a clearly defined or articulated ideology, so that centrism is arguable.
None of the three trusts the other two, but each one is willing to ally with (and use) each of the other two at various times to achieve different goals. Macron’s faction and the left agree that the right is populated by lunatics and cannot be allowed to take power, so they strategize during the election to ensure that doesn’t happen. Yet the left opposes Macron’s financial reforms, and they’re willing to strategize with the right to frustrate those initiatives. Macron’s faction and the right perceive the left as being politically immature, emotional and reactionary, and they can’t be trusted with power either, so the insistence on a left-aligned replacement PM becomes a non-starter. And so on, and so on, with alliances shifting constantly as the various parties jockey to frustrate moves by the others, and a public that is exhausted but also vaguely entertained, at least in the short term, by the squabbling.
Here in my Luxembourg office, my French co-worker says: “We love talking about politics, but only in the sense that we prefer to elect leaders who are easy to complain about.”
So I wouldn’t expect this logjam to clear up any time soon, at least until the French public gets tired of the maneuvering and decides which direction they want to lean.
---
### Author:  [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2024, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/36 "2024-12-06T11:20:24Z")
So there’s a fox, a chicken, and a bag of corn. You can only take one item at a time in the boat.
---
### Author:  [@colinfred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colinfred)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2024, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/37 "2024-12-06T11:23:29Z")
Take the chicken, come back for the corn. Fuck the fox, why do you need a fox anyway?
---
### Author:  [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2024, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/38 "2024-12-06T12:37:17Z")
> [@Spoons](#):
>
> > [@Northern\_Piper](#):
> >
> > Query: “secular parliament”? not familiar with that term.
>
> Well, it makes for a great band name.
>
> More seriously, I imagine it means a parliament in which God plays no part. No “under God” in the Constitution, for example. But I’m just guessing; I don’t know for sure.
That’s what I understand by the word “secular”, but I wonder if, judging by the context of the original reference, what was intended was something more like “sovereign”.
---
### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2024, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/39 "2024-12-06T12:52:28Z")
> [@colinfred](#):
>
> Fuck the fox, why do you need a fox anyway?
To bite you while you’re rowing. What else? 😉
---
### Author:  [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2024, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176/40 "2024-12-06T15:03:40Z")
There will always be a fox. There’s no choice. The US has Fox News and it’s not going away.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176.md?page=1)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-french-government-fell-today-12-4-24-does-anyone-care/1011176.md?page=3)