JONATHAN MILLER: Why Marine Le Pen is heading for the presidency… or prison

Not even the massive storm predicted in Paris this weekend will dampen the excitement about Emmanuel Macron’s gala re-opening of Notre-Dame cathedral tomorrow.

Five years after the fire that gutted the great religious symbol of France, its lame-duck president is planning a global media spectacular. Even Donald Trump is flying in.

But while this restoration may be magnificent, fixing France’s economic and political chaos looks vastly more difficult.

To lose one prime minister may seem a misfortune, but Macron – the head of state and grand strategist for government – has managed to get through five. Michel Barnier, defenestrated this week after just three months in the job, is merely the latest.

Those who remember Barnier as the hard-nosed Brexit negotiator, who made steak tartare out of Theresa May, might be surprised by his failure to have won over the French parliament. He was no match for the Left-Right coalition that sunk his €50billion budget package of tax rises and spending cuts, and with it his minority government.

But Barnier was fundamentally right: France does need to pay its bills. Its high-tax, high-borrowing ways are unsustainable. The commentariat here are grasping for superlatives to express the depth of the crisis. Centre-Right newspaper Le Figaro said yesterday that the nation is ‘on the brink of financial collapse’.

But how close to the edge is France really? When might it break – and how? The 66-year-old Fifth Republic has its constitutional particularities. In most countries, when you kick a government out, you have an election. Not here. Since there was a National Assembly election in June, there can’t be another one until next summer.

The French may be romantics but they are fundamentally bourgeois – and they won’t buy what Mélenchon is selling. Yet is France ready for Madame la Presidente, writes Jonathan Miller

Why? Them’s the rules.

That means, I’m afraid, that this paralysed political system could blink and gasp onwards for several months to come.

Instead of the government shutdown in France that Barnier’s emissaries threatened, France will probably do what it has done for years – and simply borrow more money.

But the cost of this overdraft is going up. With national debt at more than 110 per cent of GDP, France is now paying an interest rate as high as that of the historic basket case Greece for its stupendous borrowings.

Macron knows this – but without a prime minister he has limited ability to act. He could, though it seems unlikely, declare a national emergency and rule by decree. Even if he limps on, the campaign has already started for a presidential election that must be held by April 2027.

Macron would be ineligible to run for a third consecutive term, even putting aside his staggering unpopularity, with an approval rating in the low 20s. The question is: Who will replace him?

From the Left, the candidate could well be Jean-Luc Mélenchon, in loose terms a French Jeremy Corbyn, though angrier – a rabble rouser given to epic tantrums. He received a three-month suspended prison sentence after a 2018 incident in which he squared up to a policeman and screamed, ‘I am the Republic. I’m a politician. Get out of my way!’

Reportedly a millionaire, 73-year-old Mélenchon is chummy with numerous extreme Leftists, wokeists, transgenderists, greenies and Islamists. His economic policy is Venezuelan. He talks of a 90 per cent tax rate and lowering the retirement age.

His party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) has 71 of 577 deputies in the National Assembly, including a member of far-Left terror group Antifa on a security services watch list.

But Barnier was fundamentally right: France does need to pay its bills. Its high-tax, high-borrowing ways are unsustainable, writes Jonathan Miller

Then there’s the populist Marine Le Pen, 56. Her hobby is breeding Bengal cats, an especially strong-willed and aggressive breed – rather reflective of her own character. Her party, National Rally, occupies 124 seats in the assembly and promises a firmer line on immigration, integration and crime – policies that play well here.

The big ‘but’ is that in 2027 she could be in jail – she has been on trial for alleged embezzlement for paying party functionaries from European Parliament budgets. Judges will rule in March with a maximum sanction of three years and disqualification from public office.

If she escapes prison, the startling scenario is that the Revolutionary will face the Cat Lady – a contest Le Pen would win.

The French may be romantics but they are fundamentally bourgeois – and they won’t buy what Mélenchon is selling. Yet is France ready for Madame la Presidente?

This week has been a disaster for Barnier and Macron’s attempt to save France from its self-destructive spending spree, another reminder of the colossal systemic crisis caused by the president, and a giant leap into the unknown for the Republic.

Now what? No government. No budget. And nobody in charge. Stay tuned.