Last Neoliberal: Macron and the Origins of France's Political Crisis

The French political crisis has resulted in the breakdown of traditional left and right social blocs, with governing parties distancing themselves from the working classes. François Hollande's presidency failed to reconcile the social base of the left with the modernisation of the French model, leading to Emmanuel Macron's radicalisation of the project. This project needs a social base, the bourgeois bloc, to overcome the right-left divide, but this is a precarious process.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 192 pages
Publication date: 23 March 2021
Publisher: Verso Books

The French political crisis, which has reached its most acute phase in over thirty years with the breakdown of traditional left and right social blocs, is the subject of this book. Governing parties have distanced themselves from the working classes, leaving behind on the one hand craftsmen, shop owners, and small entrepreneurs disappointed by the timidity of the reforms of the neoliberal right and, on the other hand, workers and employees hostile to the neoliberal and pro-European integration orientation of the Socialist Party. The presidency of François Hollande was less an anomaly than the definitive failure of attempts to reconcile the social base of the left with the so-called modernisation of the French model. The project, based on the pursuit of neoliberal reforms, did not die with Hollande's failure; it was taken up and radicalised by his successor, Emmanuel Macron. This project needs a social base, the bourgeois bloc, designed to overcome the right-left divide by a new alliance between the middle and upper classes. But this, as we have seen recently on the streets of Paris and elsewhere, is a precarious process.

The French political crisis, which has reached its most acute phase in over thirty years with the breakdown of traditional left and right social blocs, is the subject of this book. Governing parties have distanced themselves from the working classes, leaving behind on the one hand craftsmen, shop owners, and small entrepreneurs disappointed by the timidity of the reforms of the neoliberal right and, on the other hand, workers and employees hostile to the neoliberal and pro-European integration orientation of the Socialist Party. The presidency of François Hollande was less an anomaly than the definitive failure of attempts to reconcile the social base of the left with the so-called modernisation of the French model. The project, based on the pursuit of neoliberal reforms, did not die with Hollande's failure; it was taken up and radicalised by his successor, Emmanuel Macron. This project needs a social base, the bourgeois bloc, designed to overcome the right-left divide by a new alliance between the middle and upper classes. But this, as we have seen recently on the streets of Paris and elsewhere, is a precarious process.

Weight: 188g
Dimension: 140 x 211 x 16 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781788733571