What Will Happen to an Economically Troubled France?

 By Henry Srebrnik, Moncton Times & Transcript

In France, it’s another day, another prime minister. In two years, France has gone through six of them.

France’s political situation became increasingly unstable after President Emmanuel Macron’s called a snap parliamentary election in July 2024, resulting in a National Assembly divided into ideologically opposed factions deeply at odds with one another. Right and left-wing lawmakers hold over 320 seats, while centrists and allied conservatives hold 210, with no party having an overall majority.

On Sept. 8, then Prime Minister Francois Bayrou lost a parliamentary confidence vote over a planned austerity budget, after nine months in office. Sébastien Lecornu, his replacement, was a Macron loyalist, and Macron directed Lecornu “to consult the political forces represented in parliament with a view to adopting a budget for the nation and making the agreements essential for the decisions of the coming months.”

Lecornu replaced his predecessor to become France’s fourth prime minister in barely a year, after agreeing to suspend France’s controversial pension reform in a bid to garner more support from MPs. Lecornu survived two consecutive no-confidence votes on Oct. 16, averting another government collapse and giving Macron a respite before an even tougher fight over the national budget.

 But every major law now turns on last-minute deals, and the next test is a spending plan that must pass before the end of the year. Bayrou’s previous government collapsed after he announced in July that two of the yearly public holidays would be permanently canceled to allow France to manage its unprecedented and unsustainable level of outstanding debt, which now stands at more than eight trillion dollars, or around 114 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). According to EU rules, member countries’ overall public debt should be no more than 60 per cent of GDP.

More than a quarter of that comes from pensions, which adds up to about 685 billion dollars a year. That’s a lot more than what the French state spends on security, justice, research, and infrastructure. That system was set up in the early postwar period, when people over 65 were only 18 per cent of the population. Today, the group aged 60 and over accounts for almost 28 per cent of the population while fertility has taken a nosedive. There are fewer younger workers paying taxes to fund current retirees. 

The cost of servicing the national debt now consumes more money than all government departments except education and defence. There has even been the humiliating possibility of the French economy needing to be bailed out by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“The only wise thing to do now is to hold elections,” remarked Marine Le Pen, still the real leader of the right-wing National Rally. “The joke’s gone on long enough.” Le Pen still believes her party was robbed of victory in the 2024 parliamentary elections, when, after coming out on top in the first round of voting, it was defeated in the second round by the New Popular Front (Nouveau Front Populaire), a hastily cobbled together coalition of left-wing parties.

Le Pen has largely kept her distance from this chaos while appealing her March sentence in an embezzlement case that barred her from public office for five years. That has handed the leadership of the opposition to the firebrand Luc Mélenchon and his ultra-left movement “France Unbound” (“La France Insoumise”).

Despite her legal troubles, though, Le Pen, has a 35 per cent approval rate in the polls, more than double that of President Macron. The leftwing parties are collectively at 19 per cent.

Macron has left open the possibility of a referendum on the 2023 pension reform, contingent upon reaching an agreement on the reform's specifics. On Oct. 21 he emphasized that the reform is currently postponed, not cancelled or suspended, with the delay aimed at easing social tensions and enabling a broader dialogue between unions, employers, and the government.

Political commentator Nicolas Baverez has warned that “France finds itself paralysed by chaos, impotence and debt.” There are important municipal elections coming in March 2026, and then the presidential elections in May 2027. The president cannot run again in 2027, and all political parties have been trying to stake out their ideological ground ahead of the vote.

Macron came to power in 2017 promising to bridge the gap between left and right, business and labour, growth and social justice. And while he insists that he can extricate the country from the mess, he hasn’t much time remaining in his second term. Some are even calling for his resignation.

Will the Fifth French Republic even survive? It was formed in 1958 to replace the French Fourth Republic, which saw 16 prime ministers and 21 governments between 1946 and1958, none of which lasted much longer than a year. There were many small and poorly disciplined parties; several groupings even described themselves as “Independents.”

Charles de Gaulle’s new constitution was designed to sweep all that away. The system was built for a strong presidency and stable parliamentary majorities. The most significant powers were given to the president (elected for seven years) rather than a prime minister (dependent on the whim of the National Assembly). All of this has now fallen apart. Maybe they should rename the current political system the “the Fourth Republic Redux.”

 

With Gaza War Ending, Where Does Jordan Stand?

 By Henry Srebrnik, Jewish Post, Winnipeg

Today’s “two-state solution” for the pre-1948 Palestine Mandate governed by the United Kingdom is an offshoot of the older idea of partition: the division of the land into Jewish and Arab countries. Transjordan, as it was then called, had been cut from the original Mandate in 1921 and became, first, a separate British mandate under an emir, and in 1946, as Britain was on the verge of leaving Palestine, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It was always a fragile creation, yet it has lasted to this day, often defying predictions of its imminent demise by friends and foes alike.

Some analysts are currently floating another old idea. Given the basic instability and unsustainability of any Palestinian state in the West Bank (with or without Gaza), a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation comprising the Hashemite Kingdom and the West Bank might, in their eyes, be a better idea.

They view a Jordanian security presence in the West Bank as reliable, more so, certainly, than a Palestinian one. The late King Hussein proposed such a confederation in 1972: a united kingdom consisting of two districts, with full West Bank autonomy except for Jordan’s control of military and security matters and foreign affairs. In 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter raised it with Prime Minister Menachem Begin; at various times, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger espoused the idea.

Indeed, Hussein and PLO president Yasir Arafat agreed to such a confederation in 1985. The king defended this as a “a matter of shared history, experience, culture, economy, and social structure.” Jordan is Arab and Muslim, and already a majority of Jordanian citizens are themselves Palestinian in origin. He believed that the Palestinians would be better served by linking their destiny with Jordan, “a sovereign state which enjoys credible international standing.”

Yet only three years later Jordan renounced the plan, and following the 1993 Oslo Accords, which created a PLO entity in the West Bank, that idea has faded away. Yet it still has some currency, with Palestinian support at times fairly robust. Many Israelis maintain that it would be desirable if the Palestinians became citizens of existing Arab states, Jordan in particular.

But why would Jordan acquiesce to this today? It is true that Jordan controlled the West Bank between 1948 and 1967. But Palestinian national identity back was not as pronounced as it is today. The current extreme forms of nationalism and Islamism don’t fit a traditional hereditary monarchy. Conservatives in Jordan fear that Jordan’s already large Palestinian population would come to dominate domestic affairs.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Palestinian armed factions seriously endangered the Jordanian regime, culminating in the Black September civil war between 1970–1971, and for that reason Palestinian political influence is still suppressed in today’s Jordan.

Nor might this really benefit Israel. What if in such a confederation a resurgent Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or other terrorist group succeeded at overthrowing the Hashemites? The consequences would be far graver than if the same thing happened in a fully independent, PLO-led Palestinian state on the 1949 armistice lines.

The kingdom is also one of the world’s largest recipients of U.S. economic and military assistance, with one of the best-trained armies in the Middle East and advanced American weaponry. If this arsenal were to fall into the hands of Islamists, Jordan would be far more dangerous than a would-be Palestinian state.

Shortly after the Gaza war started, the kingdom saw massive demonstrations against Israel, spurred by the resurgence of the Muslim Brotherhood, who support Hamas and leveraged the public outcry over Israel’s military operations, with aid from Iran, which has stepped up its efforts to destabilize the kingdom by reactivating Islamist groups within the country. Protests organized by the group have been dominated by Hamas flags and pro-Hamas slogans.

The group’s political arm, the Islamic Action Front, is the largest opposition group in Jordan’s parliament since its gains in last year’s parliamentary election, the first following a series of reforms introduced by King Abdullah II aimed at promoting greater democratization.

Jordan’s security services on April 15 arrested 16 people suspected of plotting attacks inside the country involving rockets and drones. The hand of Iran was suspected. Jordan accused the Muslim Brotherhood of planning the attacks and introduced a blanket ban against the group April 23.

The relationship between Israel and Jordan has had its ups and downs, though since a 1994 treaty they are formally at peace. The second intifada, 2000-2005, and Israel’s 2008-2009 military operation in Gaza, were challenging periods. In 2017, an Israeli security guard at the Israeli embassy in Amman killed an assailant and an innocent Jordanian national, shuttering the embassy for six months. The Gaza war has, naturally, put increased strain between the two nations, and in the last several years, it’s been mainly a peace upheld by security coordination.

King Abdullah has of late been particularly critical of Israel. The king joined 56 other countries at the September 15 joint meeting of the Arab League and Organization of Islamic States, following Israel’s September 9 attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, in calling for tougher measures against the Jewish state. He also contended that the attack was “proof that the Israeli threat has no limits,” and advocated for a “clear, decisive, and deterrent” response. He urged a “review all our tools of joint action to confront the threat of this extremist Israeli government.” 

During his September 23 speech before the UN General Assembly, King Abdullah again centred his remarks on Israel. He criticized Israel for attacking Iran, Syria, and Lebanon, though all three have had Iranian proxies that posed direct threats to Jordan. He accused Israel of complicity in the desecration of Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. He even stated that Israel was a threat to the Al Aqsa Mosque. (Jordan maintains administrative control of the Temple Mount because Israel granted that in 1967 following the Six Day War. But in return, no other religion other than Islam is permitted to pray anywhere on the of the Temple Mount.)

On November 1, 2023, Jordan pulled its ambassador from Tel Aviv. Amman also encouraged the European Union and the United Nations to sanction and embargo arms transfers to Israel. The Allenby Bridge, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, which crosses the Jordan River, was shut on September 19, after two Israelis were murdered at the crossing by a Jordanian truck driver. It was the second incident of its kind in a year, following the killing of three Israelis in September 2024. The bridge reopened four days later.

Israel and Jordan share a critical and lengthy border, secured by the peace agreement. The boundary is 482 kilometres long and stretches from the Golan Heights through the West Bank and the Dead Sea to its terminus at the Gulf of Aqaba. Jordan also provides Israel with strategic depth and early warning vis-à-vis Iran. In April and October 2024, as well as during the June 15-23 twelve-day war, bilateral defense cooperation was critical to helping to counter Iranian missile and drone attacks against Israel. A weakened Jordan would place Israel in a far more dire situation.

 

Where Does Hamas Go From Here?

 By Henry Srebrnik, Fredericton Daily Gleaner

No one should belittle or make light of U.S. President Donald’s Trump’s role in bringing about a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. It’s the best news we’ve had since October 7, 2023. Trump accomplished something no one else has done. He deserves full credit.

Only an American president who was prepared to lay down terms for the war’s end that mandated both the elimination of Hamas and the immediate freedom of all the captives could have done it.

Trump made it clear there are now no more sacred cows in the Middle East, no more safe spaces, and no more off-limits targets. Israel and the U.S., together, humbled Iran and Yemen’s Houthis. Israel pulverized Gaza, weakened Hezbollah, and even attacked Qatar.

A nearly identical version of what became the current cease-fire deal had been on the table for months. But, as foreign affairs insiders in Washington noted, it only came together in early October because all sides faced intense pressure in the wake of the Sept. 9 Israeli strike on Hamas senior leadership in Doha. The Qataris were shocked and Trump was furious. After all, Qatar hosts a major U.S. military installation and has served as a go-between in negotiations.

The Gulf states led a group of Arab and Muslim countries to press Trump to develop what coalesced into Trump’s 20-point plan. Hamas’s few remaining regional backers -- Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt -- put pressure on Hamas, threatening to cut diplomatic cover and deport Hamas leadership. Netanyahu was then browbeaten by Trump into accepting the plan (and also forced to apologize to Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim Ibn Hamad Al Thani for the airstrike). It was somewhat ironic that the airstrike made the peace plan possible.

But juxtaposed to this stick were numerous incentives that can, Trump believes, lead to prosperity and security in the region, even including Gaza. He used the carrot of the Abraham Accords, along with expanding commercial access into U.S. markets, to pressure or persuade the Gulf and moderate Arab states to ensure funding for Gaza reconstruction and the continued political weakening of Hamas. Qatar will be pressured to break with the Hamas leaders living safely in Doha.

But no one need wax euphoric or open a bottle of champagne just yet. Hamas remains in place, very much weakened, but with a still strong ideological and religious hold on much of Gaza’s Palestinian population. And they remain committed to the destruction of Israel, as a matter of faith, by, in their own words, “supporting the holy struggle, jihad.”

This remains the case even if the ceasefire holds or at least reduces the violence. They have ruled Gaza for almost the entire period since Israel withdrew in 2005, viciously eliminating all opponents. There’s a long way to go to ending the threat posed by Hamas and its international enablers.

President Trump’s peace plan specifies that “Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form. All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt.” Instead, Gaza is to be “governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee” with security provided by an international force.

Is this feasible? True, Hamas has been defeated militarily – but it won the war of public opinion in western countries. Much of their populations turned against Israel, which came out of the last two years more isolated than ever before in its history.

Given all this, Hamas will not accept irrelevance in Gaza, regardless of the number of troops and technocrats that will fill the economic and political void. If the past is a precedent, Hamas will fight tooth and nail to preserve its political and military standing in Gaza and its commitment to violently oppose prospects for peace. They want to be a fact on the ground and part of whatever technocratic Palestinian body next administers Gaza.

 It seems that they’re already taking steps to preserve their power in areas vacated by Israeli forces. Accused by Hamas of being traitors and collaborating with Israel, their opponents are being shot in the head in mass executions in daylight.

Hamas will step back from violence but will continue functioning as a political actor, recruiting new leaders and fighters, rearm its cadres with weapons smuggled by Iran or manufactured at home, and refill its empty coffers by co-opting humanitarian aid or resources intended for reconstruction. Put simply, Hamas may play along with the first phase of the cease-fire. But the group is not done fighting.

According to the head of Egypt’s State Information Service, Diaa Rashwan, what Hamas agreed to do is freeze its weapons, not to disarm. It remains unclear whether American, Egyptian, and Qatari mediators accepted this variation from the Trump plan. And restarting the war against Hamas once Israelis have had a taste of peace and Trump is basking in the glow of his diplomatic success will be a lot harder than it was to continue it prior to the hostage deal.

How, then, will the Gulf states go about investing in the reconstruction of Gaza? They would risk losing their entire investment the next time Israel has to “mow the grass” – that is, mount fresh pre-emptive attacks. Even before that, Hamas could take over the assets of Gulf investors or at minimum demand exorbitant amounts of “protection” money.

In Sharm al-Sheikh, Egypt, on Oct. 13, the leaders of Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and the United States issued a communiqué expressing their “determination to dismantle extremism and radicalization in all its forms.” Let’s hope they mean it.