the essential
Guest of the 8 p.m. news on TF1 on Tuesday, Prime Minister Michel Barnier suggested that a fall of his government could produce a financial catastrophe. He thus hopes to push the National Rally and the Socialist Party not to vote for censorship.
Don't they say that fear is a bad advisor? However, it is this powerful feeling that Michel Barnier wanted to appeal to on Tuesday evening. “The moment is very serious,” warned the Prime Minister during his interview with TF1. In the event of an “alliance in the votes […] between the voices of Mr. Mélenchon […] and the voices of Ms. Le Pen […]I fall.” In this case, “there is no longer any budget”, he warned, with “a storm probably quite serious, serious turbulence on the financial markets”… The Prime Minister's will was not obviously not to reassure the French by assuring them that in the event of government censorship, a special law would make it possible to pay civil servants. On the contrary, he wanted to dramatize the issue. Words that could be summed up in a few words: after me, chaos.
Convince voters
A technique that Emmanuel Macron himself used a lot. During the European campaign, during the Sorbonne speech, he said in a serious tone: “Our Europe is mortal”. Between the two rounds of the legislative elections, this time he mentioned: a “risk of civil war” if the RN or LFI won. “Fear is a powerful emotion, much more than joy or happiness,” recently analyzed a majority MP who regretted that certain political parties abuse it on social networks. Fear of immigration, fear of the big replacement but also fear of vaccines, the police or even supposed “media-political” manipulations… But the more moderate parties also indulge in using these techniques to convince voters.
52% of French people are in favor of censorship
This time, it is about putting maximum pressure on the political parties which could be led to vote for censorship: LFI, Ecologists but especially RN and PS. If there is no doubt that the first two will have no qualms about bringing down Michel Barnier and will be supported by their voters, the party of Marine Le Pen and that of Olivier Faure could be more hesitant. Both want to embody the seriousness that befits a government party. In this case, it is difficult to be the cause of chaos. By creating tension in public opinion, the Prime Minister therefore hopes to influence the general staff with whom discussions continued on Wednesday. A poll indicates that 52% of French people are in favor of censorship, so it is a question of reducing this figure in order to isolate the leaders. Or how to take opinion as witness to prevail.
Barnier sounds the alarm
This is also the technique used by the Minister of Industry, the Macronist Marc Ferracci, who by announcing the imminence of new social plans tried to defend the idea, against the advice of Michel Barnier, that he should not go back on the reductions in charges granted to businesses. “But drama no longer works,” assures us a right-wing MP. He adds: “When Élisabeth Borne explains that vital cards will no longer work if we do not vote on the budget, she doesn’t care about the world.” The President of the National Assembly herself assured Tuesday on Sud Radio: “Our texts are well done, our Constitution and our rules are there, so no disaster predicted, no American-style shutdown. […] There is no worst-case scenario.” And another MP added, paraphrasing Jacques Chirac: “when Barnier sounds the alarm, it goes pschitt. The French don't believe it will be worse afterwards.” Understandably, some French people think that the worst is already here and that only a change of Prime Minister could improve things.
