To take two and a half months to install a government after a parliamentary election may not be the mark exclusively of a third-world country, but it is certainly a poor look for a member of the G7 and a leading democracy.
However, that was the result of President Emmanuel Macron’s impetuous and ill-judged decision to call elections last June, and it was not until September 21 that a cabinet was in place.
For the president to ask the veteran Michel Barnier to become prime minister could be seen as a superb coup, thwarting the hard leftists who follow Jean-Luc Mélenchon (who, as I reported last month, wanted to put the technocrat Lucie Castets into Matignon).
Mr Macron seems to dislike the hard left more than the hard right, having no qualms about finding, in Mr Barnier, a premier some of whose key ideas (notably on limiting migration) are quite acceptable to the Rassemblement National.
The hard left’s reward for their part in the tactical voting exercise that kept Jordan Bardella out of office when the second round votes were counted has been to be marginalised themselves, while their sworn enemies are appeased.
They are threatening an autumn of protest and obstruction, and we shall see how far they get.
Mr Macron’s calculation seems to have been that although he might encourage what to him (but not to many French voters) is some distasteful nationalism among the RN, to have allowed La France Insoumise into government would have threatened the end of France as a serious capitalist economy, and all that that would entail.
The last time France flirted with Bolshevisation, at the dawn of the Fourth Republic in 1945-46, it did not end well, and nor would it were it to be tried again.
The problem now is that, if a multiplicity of rumours are true, the president dislikes his new prime minister.
They haggled for days over government appointments, and have profound ideological disagreements. Mr Barnier clearly feels he is doing his patriotic duty, and his duty to the conservative ideals he has always espoused, by taking this remarkably thankless job and stabilising France at a rather dangerous moment.
It may well yet turn out, however, that the country has arrived only at a temporary solution, with a long-term resolution probably impossible this side of the 2027 presidential elections.
The appointment of Bruno Retailleau as interior minister was immediately interpreted as humiliation for Mr Macron, whom Mr Retailleau detests and, in his capacity as a senator, has trenchantly criticised for weakness.
The RN will have no complaints, as Mr Retailleau takes a view on the migration question almost identical to theirs. And, if the left delivers on its promise of protests in the week ahead, they can expect to meet with more ferocity than in recent years, given Mr Retailleau will now be issuing the police their orders.
Mr Macron does at least have two old allies in key posts – Jean-Noël Barrot, a former Europe minister, takes over foreign affairs, and Sébastien Lecornu continues in his post as minister of defence.
With the situation becoming increasingly flammable in both Eastern Europe and the Middle East, the president will benefit from having people he can trust in these key positions of international influence.
The economy, and the threat of spending cuts to balance the books, remains crucial to the future of what is now snarkily called ‘Macro-Lepénisme’.
The two ministers in charge of these questions, Antoine Armand and Laurent Saint-Martin, are also both Macron trusties, but smart enough to realise that it is in the president’s interests to put the economy on a more realistic footing.
This not just to preserve France’s international economic strength, but to ward off the increasing complaints from the European Central Bank about the way in which France drives the proverbial coach and horses through the European Monetary System’s deficit rules.
Aware of the need to be internationally competitive, Mr Macron wishes to avoid tax rises – a briefing a few days before the government was appointed that corporation tax might have to go up was rapidly denied, but a general wealth tax remains possible – which forces him to cut spending.
How long the present arrangements can last is anyone’s guess. Mr Barnier’s party, Les Républicains, has just 47 seats out of 577 in the Assemblée nationale, yet he is prime minister.
The left and the Greens believe the president has simply ignored the elections, and of course they are right. Possibly most alarming of all for the new regime is that Marine Le Pen (whose followers are also excluded from any office in the new government) has described it as ‘transitional’.
She told Le Parisien during negotiations that if she and her party felt the budget did not take into account the wishes and interests of the French people, they would not hesitate to vote down the government on a confidence motion.
There can be no more legislative elections until next summer: but that would be the end of Mr Barnier, and heaven knows what, or who, would come next.
A no-confidence motion is also threatened by the hard left, with immediate effect, but for the moment Ms Le Pen is staying her hand, and it might well not succeed.
With her presidential ambitions for 2027 foremost in her mind, acting gratuitously when she must develop a reputation for common sense is not an option.
In any case, were the government to lose a confidence vote now or in a few weeks, so would the leftist administration that would seek to replace it.
If that goes on the game will be up for Mr Macron, with no prospect of his being able to hold out until 2027. Thus France continues to teeter on the verge of ungovernability, more like a soap opera than a serious country.
