Hail Mary

For French President Emmanuel Macron, the past few weeks have been the best of times – and the worst of times.

Over the weekend, Macron attended the glorious reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, which was severely damaged by fire in 2019. Now, there is a more luminous atmosphere in the cleaned and polished interior of the medieval cathedral, which had been darkened by centuries of grime. And the delicate spire that was lost to the flames, rises to the heavens again.

The president, meanwhile, could boast that the massive, impossibly complicated project was completed on time, wrote the Economist. It was a triumph for France, following another in the form of the ambitiously lavish spectacle of the Summer Olympic Games, praised by viewers from around the world.

But while the City of Light could celebrate the medieval landmark’s phoenix-like rising from the ashes, the government was in a state of crisis that observers at the British magazine Prospect feared might end the fifth republic.

For the first time since 1962, a French government collapsed when on Dec. 5 an overwhelming majority of lawmakers approved a no-confidence measure ending Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s tenure, the BBC reported.

Macron appointed Barnier only three months ago after a snap early election that had resulted in Macron’s centrist allies losing seats to left-wing and far-right parties. No party secured a majority at the polls, however, leading Macron to appoint Barnier, a conservative, explained Politico.

The big takeaway though was that Macron’s gambit blew up in his face, CNN wrote, wondering what the president was thinking for having called early elections in the first place.

Despite their differences, however, the left and far-right agreed to oust Barnier, the European Union’s former lead Brexit negotiator, when he used special powers to adopt a budget without the usual vote in the French parliament. This proposed budget, importantly, contained more than $60 billion of tax hikes and spending cuts to decrease France’s deficit, noted Bloomberg. That budget is now defunct.

As president, Macron now faces the task of finding a new prime minister who will oversee a “minority government in a parliament where no party holds a majority,” the Associated Press wrote. Creating the next government will be as tough as “finding a five-legged sheep,” political scientist Benjamin Morel of the University of Paris-Panthéon-Assas told Le Monde.

The political disruption could send ripples throughout France – which is grappling with precarious political and fiscal situations – as well as the region and the world. In Europe, argued a Reuters op-ed, France is a major energy supplier that has supplied its neighbors with cheap electricity at a time when energy costs have been high. The government is central to the industry. But the government must invest heavily, especially in its nuclear power plants, to keep the power flowing.

Also, France’s posture towards Russia today is vital, according to World Politics Review. Macron is scrambling domestically while he is also aiming to lead Europe in a united front against Russian aggression in Ukraine, as Foreign Affairs described. The dissolution of the French government is also coming as its neighbor and lead partner in Europe, Germany, is in a similar situation: Its government collapsed a month ago.

Meanwhile, Chad this month ended its military agreements with France, too, Al Jazeera reported. On Friday, protests broke out in the capital against France in scenes reminiscent of those in Mali and elsewhere in Francophone Africa. The French exit from Chad was the latest in a series of forced pullouts from former colonies in the region that include Mali and Niger.

Writing in the Washington Post, Paris-based columnist Lee Hockstader noted the stark relief of the “miracle” of the resurrection of Notre-Dame de Paris and France’s colossal government “meltdown,” calling the contrast, “A pas de deux for the ages.”

“The rebuilt cathedral … is testament in stained glass, sculpture and masonry to a can-do France,” he wrote, continuing that it “stands in magnificent, maddening counterpoint to a can’t-do France – a succession of floundering, failed and loathed governments in this century that have embittered millions of voters.”