Where next?

[Quiksilver]

On the bright side, though, they cost the State less in the long run than the youngsters. See above Then, there was Tony Blair, there is Macron....if they are examples of young blood, God help us all!

[MAD87]

Well, we'll know before tomorrow's opening of Notre Dame apparently, which oldie will accompany EM. All sorts of nonsense is circulating on social media I hear, including cartes vitales being cancelled by March. The reality is that the 2024 budget will be applied for 2025 if no new budget is voted this month.

What I can't get my head around is that so many businesses will go to the wall for lack of "aides". Jeepers, if you can't start a business without being propped up by govt finance, what hope is there?

[Biloute]

Macron himself said in 2019:
"A president should not be able to stay if he had a real disavowal in terms of majority"
He no longer has the majority in Parliament and he is at around 20% in the polls... So, what is he waiting for ?
https://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/le-pr ... 9-20240830

[Quiksilver]

Fairy nuff, but think about it...if he were to resign that leaves France with no government, no President, no-one at all at the helm and a free-for-all amongst the Left, Right and Centre. And all that just a couple of weeks away from les fêtes when, apart from those in the retail industry, the will to work is at it's lowest ebb. Not a happy prospect!

[Biloute]

...if he were to resign that leaves France with no government, no President, no-one at all at the helm and a free-for-all amongst the Left, Right and Centre. ...

We no longer have a government anyway. But that doesn't stop ministers from dealing with current affairs and the administration from functioning.
The general free-for-all between left, right and center is also already there...
If Macron resigns, the President of the Senate (Gérard Larcher) takes over immediately while waiting for new elections very quickly.
Alain Poher, President of the Senate at the time, had already been interim President of the Republic (3 months in total) in 1969, when De Gaulle resigned, and in 1974, when Pompidou died and France had not collapsed!

[Quiksilver]

Ah, thanks for the clarification, Biloute

[Biloute]

@ Quicksilver . For now, Macron is still President but that doesn't mean he's protecting France! While he was resting from his vacation in Saudi Arabia, the President of the European Commission, Wonder Hyena, rushed to Uruguay to sign, behind our backs, the EU-Mercosur agreement that will ruin our farmers to enrich German industry. And Macron has done nothing to protect our sovereignty. Besides, Von der Leyen canceled her presence at the inauguration of Notre-Dame because she's scared or simply because she despises us.

[MAD87]

@Biloute Whilst I sort of agree with you, France needs a complete overhaul. I have limited sympathy for farmers who have become over-indebted (cf. all those tractors and other costly machines each has), the burdonsome state machine which requires that each little fish has all his/her privileges - big office, official car, etc. - and the duplication of bodies which do the same thing but shout at each other. In between, the minions are making mistakes, losing documents and generally making the life of les administrés miserable. Another revolution won't solve anything, as the leaders/winners will just perpetuate the état non égalitaire.
It's time for the state to grasp that that the people pay their salaries and the bills.

[Quiksilver]

Um, just a precision re. the smaller farmers @MAD87, I don't know about the big fish. The smaller exploitations are dependent on EU subsidies. To obtain them, they have to conform to EU directives. Those directives are dreamed up by bureaucrats who know absolutely zilch about the practicalities of small-scale farming. The recent result of this is that the farmers are told what they must grow (diversification) and how they must grow it. In these days of mecanisation, each crop requires specialised equipment for sowing, treatment and harvesting. So the net result is a spiral of forced investment in equipment or reliance on entrepreneurs and CUMAs who obviously charge for their services. Either way the agriculteur pays! Is it any wonder that they're angry and that France is haemorrhaging it's agricultural heritage? Absolutely in accord with you about the rest, though! No-one has yet succeeded in slimming down the ridiculously top-heavy, inefficient bureaucracy. Any more than weeding out the superfluous political layers. No-one ever will while those same people have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

[Biloute]

@MAD87: I agree with you: France needs a complete overhaul. Could it come from Macron? Certainly not: to solve problems, we cannot count on those who created them!
In 40 years, the number of farmers has been divided by 4 and there are now more civil servants in the Ministry of Agriculture than farmers. All this to enforce more demanding standards here than anywhere else, including in the EU...
Like you, I am shocked by the equipment farmers have. Do they really need, like my neighbor here, 3 tractors of €350,000 each to farm 80 hectares? But can we blame them? They do what the system pushes them to do in the same way that we buy Chinese crap on Amazon or like me a smartphone only to receive security codes from my bank to make purchases...
In the meantime, our elites have put the EU countries out of the race: the Americans invent, the Chinese copy and the EU creates standards!
So yes, an overhaul is needed but who will it come from?