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France’s hard Right edges towards a concordat with big business
In the face of Macron’s heroic narcissism and two ghastly alternatives, corporate bosses have made their choice
French big business has issued the ritual anathema against the hard Right – but this time its heart is not in it. The signs are ever clearer that corporate bosses would rather deal with a Le Pen government than face either of the two ghastly alternatives. Everybody has written off Emmanuel Macron completely.
The business lobby MEDEF is more worried about the Gothic fiscal plans of the Left’s Front Populaire, running a close second in the polls. It aims to roll back the retirement age to 60 and reverse every economic reform pushed through by Mr Macron since 2017.
“Their programme is an absolute red flag. It would lead to €200bn of extra public spending each year, financed by taxes or borrowing. That will end badly,” said Patrick Martin, the group’s president.
The original Front Populaire of Leon Blum 1936 triggered systemic capital flight – mostly to London – and forced France off the Gold Standard in short order. The experiment ended two years later in full crisis, a denouement forgotten in the iconography of today’s Left.
MEDEF is just as worried by what it calls the “catastrophe scenario” of another hung parliament, this time dominated by two irreconcilable blocs on each wing, with Mr Macron’s dying centre reduced to a skeleton. It is the most likely outcome. The constitution forbids another election for a year.
