The German government collapsed because one of the three parties in the ruling coalition for more than 3 years has been causing trouble, creating excuses and staging a drama to leave the coalition. According to the results of current public opinion polls in Germany, Germany will soon have a new ruling party and a new chancellor.
In France, it was a different story. The removal of Prime Minister Michel Barnier, who is not from the same political party as President Emmanuel Macron, by the French National Assembly in a vote of no confidence just three months after he was re-approved by the same parliament was both foreseeable and inevitable.
The reason is that Mr. Macron and his faction do not have a majority in the National Assembly, but Mr. Macron does not want to nominate someone from the left wing - the largest faction in the National Assembly - to be Prime Minister. This faction has openly declared its intention to overturn all of Mr. Macron's policy views and is in the same boat with the right wing, the far right, the populists and the nationalists in the intention of pressuring Mr. Macron to resign.
Mr Macron has gotten himself into this situation. In the European Parliament elections this summer, Mr Macron’s faction suffered a heavy defeat. The results of the European Parliament elections have only a limited impact on the domestic political situation in France. At that time, Mr Macron’s faction had a very stable majority in the French National Assembly. Yet Mr Macron decided to dissolve the National Assembly and call an early general election.
This wrong decision was chosen and made by Mr. Macron in essence as a kind of "running away forward" but in reality it became counterproductive and did more harm than good for Mr. Macron. His faction lost the majority in the new National Assembly.
The current government crisis in France is just the outward manifestation of the power struggle between Mr Macron and the two largest opposition factions in the French National Assembly. Mr Barnier and all the French Prime Ministers nominated by Mr Macron are not collateral damage but direct victims.
In a speech to the French people after the collapse of Mr. Barnier's government, Mr. Macron blamed the government crisis on both the left and right wings in the National Assembly and vowed not to resign but to continue in power until the end of his current presidential term in the summer of 2027. According to the current French constitution, Mr. Macron cannot dissolve the National Assembly again until mid-summer next year and hold early general elections.
France continues to have a government crisis and political and social instability, so Mr. Macron has no chance of successfully ruling.
France is in turmoil, Germany is also in government crisis, internal divisions between members are deep, the conflict in Ukraine is persistent and former President Donald Trump is about to return to the White House, making the EU more worried. The outlook is indeed quite bleak for the EU.
