Issues with the budget
If Barnier chooses the latter route, he can only hope Le Pen gets cold feet about plunging the country into financial chaos.
But the National Rally’s official position, for now, is that it won’t budge unless all its “red lines” are removed from the budget. “We still have issues [with the budget]… [Barnier] has until Monday,” Le Pen told Le Monde on Thursday.
Meanwhile, her wish list has expanded over the past few days. The National Rally is asking that the government scrap a tax hike on electricity, abandon a planned postponement to a yearly inflation adjustment for pensions, keep employer contribution exemptions on low wages, pledge not to delist certain drugs, “drastically cut” access to state-funded health care for undocumented immigrants, and “negotiate with Brussels a reduction in France’s contribution to the European Union budget.”
Barnier has started to give in, making a U-turn on his plans on electricity taxes and agreeing to keep employer contribution exemptions in place. He also attempted to seduce the far right in an interview with conservative daily Le Figaro with extra promises such as limiting the ability of individuals without documentation to access health care.
Barnier claims none of that was aimed at convincing Le Pen, but instead was a bid for consensus with all opposition parties.
Politics is also at play, with Le Pen wanting Barnier to lay the win at her feet. “I have a democratic issue with the insistence on saying that this is not a concession to the National Rally,” she said. “They want our votes, but not our faces associated to them.”