Well, there we have it. The result of this no confidence motion, Michel Barnier has been brought down by a no confidence vote in parliament that has succeeded the first time that a a French prime minister has been brought down by a parliamentary vote [00:00:18] in this country since 1962. His government now falls and he will have to tender his resignation to President Emmanuel Macron. All right, so a bit of world news for you guys. In France. [00:00:33] The government has collapsed after a no confidence vote removed Prime Minister Michel Barnier. Barnier was appointed to his position just three months ago by French President Emmanuel Macron, but many on the left were upset by the appointment. [00:00:50] Over the summer, the left won the most seats in a snap election, so they felt as though they should have had more power within the government. However, instead of getting a left wing prime minister like they wanted. Barnier, who was considered to be center right at best, was appointed instead. [00:01:07] However, the far right party, which is led by Marine Le Pen, hasn't been happy with Barnier either. Not to mention, it's no secret that Le Pen wants Macron's job. She's run against him and she hasn't won. But people are suspecting now that maybe this push to get the Prime [00:01:24] Minister out of the way is the next step along her path to the presidency. The big inciting incident that led to this vote occurred on Monday, when Barnier invoked a presidential decree to push through his budget. He had to invoke the already controversial decree [00:01:40] because he didn't have enough support for the budget bill for it to pass properly. So while the left was already trying to get rid of him, this budget brought the right wingers on board there with all their powers combined. 331 votes were cast to oust Barnier. [00:01:56] Only 288 were needed. President Macron, who had largely just not been involved with any of this, is expected to appoint a new prime minister sooner than later this weekend. Paris will be hosting leaders from around the world, including president [00:02:13] elect Donald Trump, for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral. So people are saying he should probably appoint someone before that. But that's just like in two days, we'll talk more about the budget. But first, something that I want to point out to our audience is that in France they have a left wing and they have a right wing of government. [00:02:33] But the president himself right now is more in the center of everything. So in a way that's a bit more defined than it is here in the United States, where the president is in the middle and he's got two opposition parties, one on either side of him. If we want to talk about horseshoe theory, we can really see [00:02:52] that playing out right now in France. There's more to this story. But Jordan, what do you think about that? I'm just concerned, having watched Le Pen's rise over the past several years now, [00:03:08] every couple of years, I grow increasingly concerned about her popularity, her prominence in French politics. I think she wields, a xenophobic message. [00:03:23] You know, she was extremely anti-immigrant. And she also kind of came about at the same time as Trump riding a right wing, populist, anti-immigrant wave. And I I'm just alarmed that she is still in politics. [00:03:41] She could even be seen as a useful tool here. You know, I think the argument that I wanted to make tonight, before his internet gave him troubles was, you know, it can be used sometimes, this kind of horseshoe theory to take on the establishment, but, you know, I would break from that. [00:03:59] I think on issues like this, they're not our ally. Even if it is to get Macron out, I think Macron would be more of an ally in the long run. Maybe not even a good one than Le Pen. So, you know, new popular front, I think with the with the approach [00:04:15] and the parties and the interests and the ideas that they represent overall are the best path forward for France. I don't know how I feel about Le Pen in this situation. She's not somebody I would want hanging around in the long run. [00:04:31] This kind of reminds me of our conversation from yesterday, where we were talking about how good the right wing tends to be at playing the long game. Right. Marine Le Pen has ran for the presidency a few times against Macron. She hasn't won. Macron, I don't believe. [00:04:47] Correct me if I'm wrong, but he's not eligible to run again after this term is up and people are saying or people are suspecting Expecting that by ousting the Prime Minister. Now the people in government in the French government can insist that Emmanuel Macron [00:05:03] step down from his position. And then that would be, you know, kind of a way to get Marine Le Pen into that position. But you're absolutely right. She's maybe I undersold it. She's she's dangerous, you know, and she is the leader of the right wing of the French government right now. And she's not anyone to underestimate. [00:05:21] We've underestimated people like her in the past. And we, you know, we see where that's gotten us. And right now in the French government, it's kind of interesting what's happening, because obviously they have more than one party. They have the right wing, but then they also have the left wing. But the left wing is not very well organized. [00:05:38] It's very disjointed. It's kind of they had a whole bunch of smaller left wing parties, and they all kind of came together for this one common purpose. So yeah, to your point, if there is some kind of populist argument to be made here, maybe it did get this one thing done. But where do we go from here? That's the big question. [00:05:56] But I do want to talk very quickly about the budget itself, and why it was so bad that people from both the left and the right had issues with it. France is currently experiencing a severe debt crisis, one that Barnier insisted needed to be dealt with one way or another. According to the New York Times, Mr. Barnier had justified his proposed cuts [00:06:15] and tax rises, saying the country needed to address its financial troubles. France's annual deficit is projected to reach at least 6.1% of gross domestic product, twice the limit prescribed by the European Union. Its debt is 112% of GDP, nearly [00:06:32] twice the limit between the proposed cuts and the increased taxes. There was plenty for people to be upset about. Let's hear more from the BBC about the budget. We had the problem of a budget because there is a deficit in France [00:06:48] that is increasing and increasing, and that's why this budget was considered an austerity budget because Michel Barnier had to find ways to cut. Budgets in many different fields. Now we have no measures anymore and we have to. [00:07:05] Start everything again. But this budget was also the risk. The right now for French people is that everyone who pays taxes. So for approximately 70 million people here in France, they are going to pay more [00:07:22] taxes in 2025 than they should have paid, because the the rules are not following the inflation. Barnier's budget would have made cuts to pensions, healthcare reimbursements and climate initiatives, among other things. [00:07:39] This feels like a pattern that we're seeing. There was a similar situation recently in Germany. There was that short lived martial law that happened in South Korea. And if you want to loop us in, our own country is facing a lot of uncertainty right now. All of that instability can possibly have detrimental impacts around the world, [00:07:57] perhaps most notably in Ukraine. But there is something to be said about, you know, the populism that we were talking about earlier. You know, so many issues are presented as being left versus right, but in reality it's the governing versus the governed, right? It's the elites versus everyone else. [00:08:12] It's all these feigned partner or partizanship, because there's less collective bargaining whenever there are smaller factions of people. And I'm not saying necessarily that the left needs to agree with the right on the reasons why they wanted Bernie out of office. But I am saying that around the world and throughout history, whenever there [00:08:30] is mass upheaval, it almost always is a situation of massive inequality. And that's obviously a problem here in the US. But it's a major problem that they're dealing with right now in France. Jordan, I don't know. Do you have any words of comfort as we head into the New year? [00:08:47] Because everything feels it's a little it's a little shaky right now, I'll say. Oh, certainly. I mean, Macron is like the, the poster boy for for neo neoliberalism. And what I think and I hope we're seeing is the death of neoliberalism. [00:09:02] More and more people are recognizing that it is unsustainable and it favors the wealthy. And then you enter moments like this, like we saw in the in the eurozone crisis in the early 20 tens. Austerity budgets. And then again, to bring it back to Le Pen. That's a moment where you can exploit people's economic suffering [00:09:19] and blame immigrants. They did that. Then people were blaming. It was a it was a. Christopher Caldwell wrote this ridiculously dense book in the late 2000, reflections on the Revolutions of Europe was one of the thickest books I've ever read. Like it? [00:09:35] Just in terms of text and citations, but it was just a rigorous and thorough denunciation of the eurozone and free flowing migration. That's not what caused the eurozone crisis. It was sovereign debt that then spread throughout the zone. And when you cut back on social services and you cut back on government programs [00:09:55] through austerity budgets to try to ease this economic circumstance, a right wing populist is going to exploit it and blame the other, blame the most marginalized. Trump does it here. Le pen will do it in France. So this situation that an era of neoliberalism has created yet again [00:10:15] is an opportunity for Le Pen to exploit. And that's why I'm deeply concerned about, just even using her to oust Macron. Yeah, absolutely. I think we're, we're it's just going to be an ongoing situation. [00:10:30] We're going to have to keep monitoring it, just like everything else going on in the world right now because it all comes back around. 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