Ray Ventura is a little forgotten. But not its refrain composed in 1935: “Everything is going very well, Madame la Marquise… But I have to tell you, we regret a very little thing…” You might think you hear this song echoing in the corridors of power these days. Remastered, we can easily imagine it in the background of a telephone conversation between Michel Barnier and Emmanuel Macron. The French house is on fire and political leaders continue their St. Vitus dance on a hot roof, between the wait for a new credit rating of France by S&P Rating and the prospect of sending troops to Ukraine. No doubt this generalized irresponsibility falls to the president who self-dissolved his power through his crazy dissolution. Since this senseless gesture, spectators of the political theater have been going through a waking nightmare.
The republican monarchy has lost its king while everything revolves around this extinct star. The pyramid, in theory, rests on the head and there is no more head. The crown has fallen to the ground and, for all the schemers, it is up for grabs. Hence the ridiculous maneuvers of these presidential candidates who remain outside the government and who only care about 2027. And this, while the drama is playing out in 2024, perhaps tomorrow morning.
Gladiator, it's at the cinema. On the public stage, it's just an MMA fight for pushy midgets. Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon particularly stand out, but all the others, at their (small) level, make disaster the bulwark of their elevation.
Indeed, cynicism imposes itself, which undermines the common good. In contempt of all humanity and the national interest. Mélenchon and Le Pen display the arrogance of two potentates who imagine tomorrow engaging in a duel for power without anything or anyone being able to stop them. Even the clan of reasonable people seems to be losing their minds at a time when they should be coping with the disasters of public finances, anger, internal unrest and the Ukrainian war.
Everyone is competing for their electoral clientele against a backdrop of the threat of censorship from the government. It's as if the madmen have taken over the asylum and all we have to do is hang on to the paintbrush. Because the head of government in title, Michel Barnier, even comes, under pressure from his supporters who are not supporters, to adopt such a low profile that he admits to not being the leader of the majority.
The Prime Minister is resigned, even if public opinion wants appeasement with him. He is powerless to shake up everything in the midst of his mini-ministers, of which only one exists, Bruno Retailleau. But the latter is in the braggart, which Michel Barnier himself recommended avoiding. Resigned impotence reigns within the executive. Even if between possible and impossible there are only two letters added, we are still faced with an abyss.
This power is content to install patches without a budgetary plan. Michel Barnier is quick to remove them as soon as a lobby or a feathered hat from the famous common base – which no longer has anything in common – raises its voice. Even ministers openly contest the first of them. It is no longer a government nor a majority, but a petaudière. Except that at the court of King Pétaud there was still a sovereign.
France
