This Sunday is the first round of French legislative. The unknown that he plans is whether Macron will achieve, as in 2017, the absolute majority to govern without ties. It will not be known until the second round on Sunday the 19th, but the prospects are worse than five years ago.
Only 27% are satisfied with the government that Macron has formed after the presidential elections. And although a little more than half want him to obtain that majority, 45% bet on the left-wing front that Mélenchon has woven, integrating the majority of the socialist party (that of Mitterrand and Hollande) and the environmentalists. As if here Podemos had eaten the PSOE. Today, the left-wing populist Mélenchon is the alternative.
And populism has where to bite. The great concern of the French (57%) is the erosion of purchasing power. The wage cut caused by the rise in prices. And that in France inflation is 5.8%, compared to 8.1% in the euro zone and 8.7% in Spain. Without a doubt, the high Spanish CPI in recent months is one of the causes of the rise of Vox that the surveys detect. We will see Andalusia.
All governments today fear the inflationist monster fueling unrest and protests. The war in Ukraine is not the only cause, but it is one of them. The increase in natural gas has pushed up electricity prices and the replacement of Russian gas (which supplied Germany and other countries) with liquid gas will increase prices even more. That is why Europe is reluctant to ban purchases from Russia. On the contrary, in the short term (next winter), the great fear is that Russia will cut off the supplydespite the great cost it would have for their coffers.
Energy prices have risen 39% in one year and oil prices have risen 50% since January. The EU has decided – after much discussion – to suspend almost all purchases of Russian oil and James Dimon, the president of JP Morgan, has said that crude could shoot up from 120 to 175 euros, which would be a catastrophe. Jason Furman, a Harvard professor and former Obama adviser, says: “America produces as much oil as it consumes, and gas prices are little affected by the conflict. In Europe the price of oil and gas will worsen and damage activity. In America, the Ukraine war is unlikely to cause a recession any time soon. On the contrary, it is very likely that it will cause it in Europe & rdquor ;.
And the increase in the price of wheat and other cereals due to the forced cessation of exports from Ukraine -the world’s granary- is generating, as Rafael Vilasanjuan explained in this newspaper, a food emergency in Third World countries with terrible human consequences that will also bring about a uncontrolled immigration.
This is why Macron, Scholz and Draghi are concerned about the duration of the war, which is going to be in its fourth month. They do not want Putin to win and are willing to continue the boycott of Russia to support Ukraine, but how long can the war and the shipment of increasingly offensive military material last without crossing what Putin considers red lines? Merkel reappeared on Tuesday and stated that it is impossible to act while ignoring that Russia is the second nuclear power in the world.
The prolongation of the war – in the short term neither Ukraine can win nor Russia lose – is worrying. Europeans are citizens and consumers who can vote against democratic governments while Russians are subjects accustomed to living in a dictatorship. The cost of sanctions against Russia, although lower, may in the short term destabilize European democracies more than Putin.
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Germany, France and Italy want to avoid it. That is why – like Kissinger in Davos – they believe that don’t humiliate Putin. And a European division is being created. The ‘pragmatists’ are accused by the ‘justicieros’ (Ukraine, but also Poland and the Balts) of wanting peace at any price. And Boris Johnson is with them.
In the end, everything will depend on whether Putin agrees to back down. And of the position of the United States, with a President Biden with difficult elections in November and a combative Trump. Can Putin, who has made a huge miscalculation, admit a reasonable way out that is the lesser evil?