Le Pen threatens to bring down minority government if no budget concessions
Marine Le Pen has intensified her threat to bring down France’s minority government after failing to win concessions from Prime Minister Michel Barnier.
Marine Le Pen has intensified her threat to bring down France’s minority government after failing to win concessions from Prime Minister Michel Barnier.
The National Rally leader left a meeting with the conservative leader of the centrist-conservative coalition saying he had not budged on any of her demands to ease the burden on poorer households in the draft 2025 budget.
Ms Le Pen ended her hard-right party’s tacit support for the government last week and threatened that unless concessions were made, she could join a left-wing no-confidence vote that could topple it.
“My position has not changed,” she said as she left the Prime Minister’s mansion in Paris. “No more, it seems, than that of the Prime Minister has changed.”
Asked whether the Rally would back a no-confidence motion, Ms Le Pen said: “Of course.”
Mr Barnier has acknowledged his government is in danger of collapse if the hard right joins the left in what he calls a “coalition of opposites” against his minority administration, which he assembled after President Emmanuel Macron appointed him following the inconclusive parliamentary elections in July.
He is arguing that the French people do not want more political chaos and a failure to tackle a crisis over its runaway budget deficit, which is expected to reach 6 per cent of GDP this year.
His ministers are raising the spectre of a “Greek-style” financial crisis if markets cannot be convinced that the government can bring the economy under control with its plan for €60bn of savings in next year’s budget.
Financial markets reacted to the failure of the Le Pen-Barnier talks by pushing the premium that investors demand to hold French bonds over German ones to highs not seen for more than a decade.
Ms Le Pen said there was still time for Mr Barnier to reverse taxes on electricity and other budget items, but she would not hesitate to vote out the government if he stuck to his position. Mr Barnier’s aides said the talks were “constructive, courteous and frank”.
Mr Barnier has angered the opposition with plans to force through the budget by using a constitutional tool that would bypass a parliamentary vote. He invited Ms Le Pen for talks in an attempt to soothe her anger at what she regards as a lack of respect for her movement, which enjoys the support of about a third of the electorate.
Ms Le Pen, 56, threatened to upend the government after a prosecutor’s demand for her to be barred from public office if convicted on charges of illegally siphoning more than €4m of European parliamentary funds to finance her party. A verdict in her trial, along with 24 associates, is due in January.
The votes of Ms Le Pen’s 124 MPs, the biggest party in parliament, and the left Popular Front parties’ combined 192 MPs in next month’s confidence motion would topple the government, which is composed of Mr Macron’s centrists and the conservative Republicans party.
After winning the biggest share of the vote and being deprived by Mr Macron of a chance of office, the radical-dominated left parties are bent on bringing down the government. They also hope to force the President to resign in a poll later.
No parliamentary elections are permitted before next June so the President would be forced in the event of a collapse to pick another figure to form a minority government or ask Mr Barnier, 73, to choose a different team.
The Prime Minister, who retired after negotiating the EU’s Brexit deal with Britain, shrugged off the Le Pen’s threat, saying he had known from the outset his government could be short-lived. His aides suggested Ms Le Pen was bluffing to gain concessions, and knew French voters would blame her for creating chaos.
Ms Le Pen, who has twice come second to Mr Macron in presidential elections, may gauge that the time is right to play to her core audience as a disruptive outsider, some analysts have said. “We have got nothing to lose,” a Le Pen aide told Le Monde newspaper.
A weekend poll in Le Journal du Dimanche showed 53 per cent public support for felling the government in a confidence vote. Ms Le Pen’s lieutenants talked up the prospects of it happening, saying Mr Macron should admit his failure and resign the presidency if the vote goes ahead.
The President, relegated to a spectator role in all but foreign and defence policy, said last week he was confident Mr Barnier would survive.
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