This statement may look like a joke indeed, but it conceals hypothesis that may not be that insane: what if the Barnier government was the best government France has ever had for decades?
I can hear from far away the horror screams from the French left-wing voters and politicians. They are right: obviously, this government is not going to pursue the left-wing policies they are awaiting for, that’s sure.
On the other hand, we now have a bench of ministers who know their life expectancy as Minister is going to be (very) short. They only have a few weeks, maybe less, maybe more, to make “a good impression”.
Therefore, they are going to cut to the chase. There’s no time to write six novels (like former Finance Minister Lemaire or pose in a Playboy Magazine (like former Minister Schiappa) , no time to plan a career, no time to imagine major property development law that will named after your name for the next twenty-five years, no time to launch a brand-new-must-seen-new-museum project, a new high-speed rail line or a new tunnel under the Channel, the Alps or the Pyrenees.
What’s more, they are constrained on their right wing (by the RN party, which can topple the government at any time) and on their ‘centre-left’ (basically, the left-wing Macronists fans, such as former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who can do the same). This, too, will limit attempts at major societal or economic swerves.
Moreover, for the LR party elected representatives, there is a survival issue: they have these few weeks to show their electorate that is fleeing them (it has not vanished, it votes elsewhere, mainly for the RN party, and for a smaller fraction, for Macron centre party). They have to show that they do what they say. And that, in a politician, is already a good thing. If they fail, LR is dead (if not yet).
Last but not least, the budgetary and European constraints (they are similar at the moment, but not identical) will force them to make clear choices. As long as the budgetary constraints were somewhat diffuse, politicians could afford to have generous or poorly evaluated programs, which they sold to the French, singing nursery songs for children ‘sleep well my dears, I’m watching over you and managing the situation masterfully’.
That’s no longer the case. It’s time for the final act of the Labiche play (a famous and popular XIXe century “Vaudeville” writer) Frenc politics have been putting on us for a long time: the politician would enter the stage noisily, leave on the sly, declaim loudly with his hand over his heart, lie shamelessly without ever being caught during the first acts. And then in the final act, the hammer of truth falls on these sad, dishonest sirs who took others for pigeons or fools.
The time has come for this government to be effective, under duress. And if it’s true, it’s for the good of France.
