PARIS — Newly appointed Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu will have to hit the ground running, taking the reins of government just as protesters seek to bring France to a grinding halt. Authorities are bracing for demonstrations and blockades on highways, train stations, airports and refineries as part of an online movement called “Block Everything.” Paris Police Chief Laurent Nuñez said an “exceptional” deployment of close to 80,000 security forces across the country is planned for Wednesday and that authorities will “intervene systematically” to remove any blockades. The shutdown campaign began gaining steam after outgoing Prime Minister François Bayrou unveiled his plans to squeeze the 2026 French budget by €43.8 billion in July. Lawmakers on Monday torpedoed Bayrou’s government over those spending plans, which the longtime centrist argued were necessary to rein in excessive public spending. The French president appointed Lecornu a day after Bayrou’s downfall, responding to calls quickly replace the outgoing prime minister at a time of deep political tension. Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau himself called on the president to fill “the power vacuum.” The scale of the unrest will be a major test for Lecornu, one of Macron’s closest allies since he came to power, and the former armed forces minister will see his authority and popularity tested on his first day on the job. A discreet political operator, Lecornu has earned plaudits for shepherding France’s rearmament in the wake of the war in Ukraine, but will be thrust in the limelight like never before. In addition to responding to any violence during Wednesday’s protests, Lecornu will have to jumpstart budget talks through a paralyzed parliament without a majority. And even more widespread strikes are planned for next week. ‘NO ORGANIZERS, NO ONE WE CAN TALK TO’ In addition to its big security rollout on Wednesday, the French government is also investigating whether foreign agitators attempted to amplify the movement, though one official said the effect had so far been “marginal.” While comparisons have been drawn between “Block Everything” and the Yellow Jackets, an analysis by the Jean Jaurès Foundation concluded that the two movements are “profoundly different,” with Wednesday’s plans driven in large part by the radical left. Wednesday’s campaign, however, is supported by 46 percent of the French, according to a recent survey by pollster Ipsos. The shutdown campaign began gaining steam after outgoing Prime Minister François Bayrou unveiled his plans to squeeze the 2026 French budget by €43.8 billion in July. | Remon Haazen/Getty Images Unlike the Yellow Jackets, which began online in opposition to a fuel tax hike before entering the mainstream and bringing the country to a standstill, the “Block Everything” crusade’s goal is much more nebulous. Online accounts claiming to belong to the Sept. 10 movement are calling for a range of things, from an end to political parties to a boycott of the banking system and Macron’s resignation. Nuñez said that the leaderless nature of the movement has fueled concerns about its unpredictability. “It’s not like a demonstration, there are no organizers, no one we can talk to, just calls to block everything,” said Nuñez. “And more worryingly, the calls have been relayed by radical extreme-left [groups] who are calling for hardcore, sometimes violent acts.” Authorities also fear that whatever happens on Wednesday will inflame protests next week, which are organized by French trade unions.

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposed ban on social media for children under 15 has become something of a political rattle. It’s an object he can wave around and make noise with, but so far one he’s been able to do little else with. The idea is back in the news following both Paris’ recent push to prevent minors from accessing pornography online and a tragedy on Tuesday in which a 14-year-old student stabbed to death a 31-year-old school employee. That evening in an interview, Macron pointed the finger at social media. He said his country cannot wait for the European Union to act and vowed to go it alone in the coming months if Brussels does not move fast enough. Though the local prosecutor in the stabbing indicated Wednesday that the suspected perpetrator used “social networks very little” and was rather “a fan of violent video games,” the ball was already in motion. Bringing the social media age limit into the public debate could reap political rewards for Macron. The proposal is popular — a survey last year from Harris Interactive found 73 percent of French people support the social media age limit — and research shows children shouldn’t spend too much time on screens. One of Macron’s former advisers, who, like others who spoke to POLITICO for this story, was granted anonymity to speak candidly, said floating the proposal is “a way of giving the impression that he’s in charge.” The adviser explained that if his efforts fail, Macron can simply blame parliament. But if they succeed, the French president can claim the “ability to set the political agenda around issues that transcend party politics.” A survey last year from Harris Interactive found 73 percent of French people support the social media age limit — and research shows children shouldn’t spend too much time on screens. | Anna Barclay/Getty Images “He can tell whatever story [he wants] on this subject,” the adviser said. Tech is an area where Macron has more authority than his predecessors given his efforts to turn France into what he called a “startup nation.” It’s also one of the few areas where he still wields domestic influence following the disastrous snap elections that led to a hung parliament. But within Big Tech, there’s growing exasperation over what one industry representative called Macron’s “reflexive response” to blame social media when protest movements turn violent, such as during the Yellow Jacket protests in 2018 and the riots that followed the killing of a teenager by a police officer outside Paris two years ago. “He instills the narrative that the violence comes from the platforms,” the representative said. “For the president, there are no problems in society; everything is exacerbated by social networks.” Macron has been touting a social media and screen age limits since the beginning of his second term. A law limiting social media use for those younger than 15 was even passed in 2023 without the Elysée’s explicit support, but it fell into limbo both due to the technical complexities that come with age verification and because it came into conflict with European law, most notably the Digital Services Act. A committee of experts organized by the Elysée formally recommended in April 2024 the 15-year-old age limit for social media, and in June of that year Macron vowed to put it in place. But then he lost his parliamentary majority. Few are expecting immediate action, despite the urgency Macron expressed on Tuesday. A lawyer with the Fondation pour l’Enfance, a French NGO that defends children’s rights, told POLITICO that Macron’s team often ends up with just “announcements rather than concrete measures.” A ministerial adviser told POLITICO that Macron’s office has already organized several meetings for the coming weeks and months to move quickly on limiting both social media use and screen time for French children. Joshua Berlinger contributed to this report.

Mujtaba Rahman is the head of Eurasia Group’s Europe practice. He tweets at @Mij_Europe. French Prime Minister Michel Barnier inherited a deep fiscal crisis, which has only grown deeper during his first month in office. In his inaugural speech to parliament last week, Barnier tried to turn the fiscal bad news to his political advantage, challenging the disparate and mutually detesting forces within the National Assembly to put country before ideological or factional interests. This is no longer a time for petty quarrels or ideological obsessions, he said. It’s time for concerted, national action to prevent this crisis from becoming a calamity. Framing the challenge in this way, Barnier was able show he understands the scale of the emergency he’s been confronted with, underscoring that France’s draft budget for 2025 — due to be presented this evening — will be key to restoring the country’s economic credibility, as well as determining the survival of his minority government. As it stands, France’s fiscal deficit threatens to go well beyond 6 percent of GDP this year — instead of the 4.4 percent promised by the last government. Meanwhile, accumulated French debt has topped €3.2 trillion — or 112 percent of GDP. The country’s now paying higher interest on five-year debt than Spain or Greece. And in the coming months, several rating agencies are due to reconsider its creditworthiness — Fitch on Oct. 11, Moody’s on Oct. 25 and Standard and Poor’s on Nov. 29. Already facing EU action via an Excessive Deficit Procedure for missing the bloc’s targets, Barnier has now asked Brussels for a two-year postponement of the 2027 deadline to bring deficits below the EU’s 3 percent of GDP ceiling. And he’s announced a new deficit target of 5 percent for next year — abandoning the 4.1 percent that was originally promised by President Emmanuel Macron and former Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire. But why is France in such a fiscal mess? Truth is, France has been in the red for half a century. No government has balanced the budget since the mid-1970s, and so the present fiscal crisis is long in the making. Debt had already jumped enormously when President Nicolas Sarkozy was in power after the U.S.-triggered 2008 banking crisis. And during the Macron years, from 2017 to today, the country’s total debt has increased from roughly 100 percent to 112 percent of GDP. Much of this recent increase can be attributed to the fact that Macron had to confront two global crises in rapid succession — Covid-19, followed by the spike in inflation caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And these events themselves came after a domestic crisis — the 2018 Yellow Jackets revolt. Macron’s response to the Yellow Jackets crisis — lower taxes for poorer families and the abolition of a planned hike in gas and diesel taxes — sent his budgetary planning off course. Still, in his first couple years in office, he and Le Maire managed to reduce the deficit and even come within the EU’s limit of 3 percent of GDP. But after that, France’s public deficit started to spin out of control. During the pandemic, France adopted an “all that it takes” policy — spending to keep the economy alive during protective shutdowns — the cost of which (over €400 billion) exceeded what was spent in other EU countries. The government then pursued a policy of softening the consumer impact of the global spike in energy and other prices triggered by the invasion of Ukraine. Subsidies on pump prices, electricity bills and other handouts cost an estimated €100 billion. A study by the independent French economic think tank Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques estimates that up to 69 percent of the increase in French debt since 2017 can be attributed to the “all that it takes” response to global crises. Yet another chunk is attributable to Macron’s decision to spend his way out of the Yellow Jackets rebellion in rural and outer suburban France. Macron’s response to the Yellow Jackets crisis — lower taxes for poorer families and the abolition of a planned hike in gas and diesel taxes — sent his budgetary planning off course. | Kiran Ridley/Getty Images Although Macron came to office promising a revolution in French government, he never took the need to reduce the large share of GDP taken up by public spending very seriously. Rather, he believed lower taxes and other market-opening policies would ease the problem by boosting growth. However, as his cuts to taxes had only limited impact on growth — despite positively impacting job creation — they’ve exacerbated issue. Furthermore, public spending hasn’t been reduced pro rata either. In fact, in some areas like defense, education and health, it’s increased. Looking to today, the acute crisis of the last 10 months partly arose because revenue from taxation during the 2023 to 2024 period didn’t match official forecasts — despite the French economy outpacing Germany’s with a predicted growth rate of 1.1 percent of GDP. The shift in revenue figures was, in itself, modest. But after 50 years of overspending and the triple crises between 2007 to 2022, France has run out of room for further maneuver. Therefore, Barnier’s main political challenge — and risk — is getting France’s fiscal house in order. But can he do it? And how? Two-thirds of the deficit-cutting effort over the next three years will likely be concentrated on reducing spending, with exceptions for education, health and defense. There will, however, be tax increases on big business to try and win support — or defuse opposition — on the moderate left. Among these increases, the most significant is likely to be an 8.5 percent surtax on the profits of companies with turnover in excess of €1 billion, which is expected to hit 300 companies and raise €8 billion for the state. Barnier also announced, without much detail, some form of new tax on the “very wealthiest families.” A new tax on transactions where large companies buy back their own shares is probable as well. And the existing sales tax on heavily polluting cars is expected to increase too. Not all of this is new. For example, both of the expected “technical” measures were already planned by the outgoing Macron-controlled government. However, the surtax on big business — reversing a headline from the early Macron years — was not. Unsurprisingly, Barnier’s decision to abandon the Macron camp’s anti-tax-rise orthodoxy has already created a rift in his week-old coalition. An open letter warning against tax rises was published by 27 deputies from the president’s Renaissance party at the end of September. And the situation is further complicated by the likely need to present an amended budget in order to impose up to €20 billion in emergency spending cuts for this year. What’s more, on the surface, there’s no majority in the splintered assembly to agree on a budget of any kind. The four-party left-wing New Popular Alliance, with 193 seats, plans scores of amendments, pushing for tax increases on businesses, the wealthy and the moderately wealthy. The left also wants higher government spending on education, health and welfare; and to ignore financial markets and flout the EU’s deficit and debt limits. For its part, the far right, with 142 seats, wants increased spending on security and welfare but no increases in taxes. It says the budget deficit can be cut by spending less on immigrants and withholding part of France’s payments to the EU. And in the face of all this, Barnier’s own center coalition, with 166 seats, and the center right, with 47 seats, remain weak and divided. In theory, Barnier needs 289 votes to pass a budget, and 289 abstentions to avoid a successful censure motion. But even if he can keep his own coalition intact, he currently has at most 213 seats in the assembly — or 230, if centrist independents and deputies from overseas departments are included. Meaning, we can expect the upcoming budget debates and votes to provide a series of trip-wire censure motions. Barnier has essentially inherited the hardest job of any recent French government. Despite his appeal to the overriding national interest, he faces a steep uphill struggle in enacting a 2025 budget. And if he is to successfully steer France through these challenging fiscal waters, he’ll need to pull out all his skills as a successful negotiator.

OTTAWA — Montreal’s Laura Palestini and northern France’s Violette Spillebout may live thousands of kilometers apart in very different countries, but when they ran for higher office in recent months, they pursued similar strategies. Each deemed the leader of their country so politically toxic that they deliberately chose not to feature them on their campaign materials, even though they are members of the same party and officially support them. Once seen as emblematic of a new generation of liberals, both Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron have seen their political legacies bruised after years in power, with right-wing movements posing a growing threat to their leadership. As Trudeau prepares to host Macron for a two-day visit, both leaders share a common concern: the Obama effect. Each could be succeeded by someone who is their polar opposite and threatens to tarnish their legacy, as former President Donald Trump did to Barack Obama following the 2016 U.S. presidential election. NEW FACES OF LIBERALISM Trudeau and Macron first met at a G7 summit in Sicily in 2017, just a week after the French president took office. The Canadian prime minister was already in the second year of his first term at the time. “The French-Canadian friendship has a new face. Justin Trudeau, it’s up to us to meet the challenges of our generation!” Macron posted on social media at the time. Early comparisons between Macron and Trudeau were frequent — especially when contrasted with Trump, who had also just been elected. French political scientist Dominique Moïsi noted in 2018 that the two were the same age and exuded a similar empathy and charisma. “They are both positioned at the center of the political spectrum and share a similar vision of the world,” Moïsi said. Macron, a former investment banker and economy minister, ran outside France’s traditional left- and right-wing parties and upended the political status quo when he became the youngest president in the country’s modern history. As head of state, he promised to open up the French economy and rally the country around a “progressive” agenda. Trudeau contrasted himself as a young and dynamic new kind of politician against then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose Conservative government had become known for its secrecy and constant fights with the media. Trudeau’s Liberals aggressively took notes from the positive messaging and social media strategy that sprang out of Obama’s presidential campaigning. They carefully constructed a narrative arc that positioned Trudeau as an underdog — despite being heir to Canada’s most famous political dynasty. Trudeau and Macron first met at a G7 summit in Sicily in 2017, just a week after the French president took office. | Stephane de Sakutin/AFP via Getty Images After winning power, he branded the new Liberal era as “sunny ways” for Canadians, with his new government focusing on equity and shunning balanced budgets. FALLING SHORT ON A PROMISE OF CHANGE Christopher Weissberg, a former lawmaker from Macron’s Renaissance party who represented French citizens living in North America and lived in Canada at the time of Trudeau’s 2015 election, saw both leaders as people who “represented a new world, at odds with what even their own political currents represented.” In the end, however, both found themselves hamstrung by what Weissberg called “traditional politics” and failed to live up to their lofty promises of change. “Trudeau managed to embody a new way of doing politics to a certain extent, with at least some real progress in defending minorities, whereas we [in France] didn’t have a clear message by trying to be a little on the right and a little on the left,” Weissberg said. After nearly a decade in power, recent biographies of Trudeau have painted his government as being more reactive than pitching a grand vision for the country. That’s cut both ways, though. His government is credited for its successful full-court press against the trade threats posed by the Trump administration that would have upended the Canadian economy, and its relatively quick response to the Covid-19 pandemic, pumping out funds to bolster financially struggling Canadians at breakneck speed.  But now, Trudeau is pitching continuity in a country that’s hungry for change — almost a mirror image of former U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s situation just before his fall from power. Macron’s tenure has faced a series of roadblocks and seen moments of extreme tension in French society, including the monthslong Yellow Jackets movement. | Sebastien Dupuy/AFP via Getty Images Like many incumbent leaders struggling with a post-pandemic economy plagued by a high cost of living and a national housing crisis, polls show Canadians are eager for a replacement to a tired-looking Liberal government, which is starting to lose key players. French voters also appear ready for something different. While Macron has victories he can hang his hat on — France’s unemployment rate has dropped to around 7 percent after stagnating at 10 percent during François Hollande’s presidency and the country has emerged as a European leader in foreign direct investment  — his tenure has faced a series of roadblocks and seen moments of extreme tension in French society, including the monthslong Yellow Jackets movement and mass protests last year in opposition to the government’s unpopular decision to raise the minimum retirement age to 64 from 62 for most workers without a vote. Constitutionally barred from running for a third term and with a weakened grasp on power after losing control of parliament, Macron now runs the risk of seeing these instances of deep division and anger in French society stick as the most visible symbols of his presidency. A THREAT ON THE RIGHT, CRITICISM ON THE LEFT Despite growing discontent among their populations, the French and Canadian leaders have managed to maintain unusually long tenures in office. Macron was reelected in 2022, becoming the first French president to win a second term in two decades. Trudeau, meanwhile, kept his post as prime minister following elections in 2019 and 2021 and will have spent a decade in power if he makes it to the next national contest. Macron and Trudeau’s electoral fortunes, however, seem to have taken an irreversible turn for the worse. In June, after Macron’s party suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the far-right National Rally during the European elections — a result widely seen as a rejection of his presidency —the French president took the political class aback by deciding to dissolve parliament and hold snap elections. Macron refused to appoint the NFP’s choice for prime minister, arguing the coalition held too few seats to govern with stability. | Pat Batard/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images The gamble backfired. His coalition went on to lose a third of its seats in the French lower house and its status as the main force in parliament. They were replaced by the pan-left New Popular Front (NFP) coalition, which came out of the elections with the most seats in parliament but short of an absolute majority. Macron, however, refused to appoint the NFP’s choice for prime minister, arguing the coalition held too few seats to govern with stability. The left had also promised to unravel some of Macron’s landmark pieces of legislation, including his controversial pensions reform. Macron instead entered into a coalition with the weakened conservative party Les Républicains, forming a government that needs the tacit backing of the far right to survive. Across the Atlantic, the left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) recently pulled out of a confidence-and-supply agreement with Trudeau’s minority government, putting it at risk of falling to a motion of no confidence which would bring about an early election. That could spell trouble for Trudeau’s Liberal Party, which recently suffered two stunning by-election losses in urban Montreal and Toronto districts which were considered its strongholds. Trudeau can’t shake the question of when he will step down and who his successor will be, but the knives still haven’t come out. Liberal lawmakers all owe their careers to his name, and the Canadian prime minister has managed to keep support within his troops, who would have little to gain by breaking with their leader despite knowing he’s unpopular. So there’s no clear successor waiting in the wings. LEGACIES THROWN INTO QUESTION During his visit to Canada, Macron will attend a private dinner with Trudeau to discuss global affairs, meet with representatives of Francophone communities across Canada and meet Quebec’s Premier François Legault. But both leaders are likely to have domestic affairs front of mind, haunted by the possibility that their successors may be politicians who represent the antithesis of the progressive promises on which they were elected. A recent poll showed that if a presidential election were to be held today, the National Rally would receive around 40 percent of the vote. | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images At large, societies remain supportive of the progressive ideals of tolerance and support for minority rights championed by liberal leaders. Yet a hard-right wave is sweeping much of the Western world, with Canada and France potentially in its path. The far-right National Rally secured a landslide win in June’s EU election in France, making it the favorite in Macron’s subsequent snap vote. Though the party ended up finishing in third place, well below expectations, it still gained seats and remains broadly popular. A recent poll showed that if a presidential election were to be held today, the National Rally would receive around 40 percent of the vote. Trudeau, Canada’s positive-vibes-only prime minister, now finds himself similarly threatened, facing a firebrand populist leader who is successfully marshaling the country’s anger and frustration against its leader. Conservative Pierre Poilievre is rocketing ahead of Trudeau in the polls, decisively winning political ground on inflation, drug “safe supply” policies and by campaigning against the PM’s capstone environmental policy of carbon pricing. Poilievre has seen success in dropping incendiary apocalyptic slogans and streamlining his rhetoric — “axe the tax,” or else the economy will enter a “nuclear winter.” On the defensive, Trudeau has argued Poilievre is attacking the country’s institutions with a “flamethrower” — and that in Canada’s next election, voters will face a stark choice that cuts to the very heart of their democracy, echoing the never-Trump strategy employed by U.S. President Joe Biden’s now-abandoned reelection campaign. Trudeau will remain in office at least until October 2025, unless an early election is called. He insists he will not resign. Conservative Pierre Poilievre is rocketing ahead of Trudeau in the polls, decisively winning political ground on inflation, drug “safe supply” policies and by campaigning against the PM’s capstone environmental policy of carbon pricing. | Dave Chan/AFP via Getty Images Macron’s term is scheduled to end in 2027, but it remains unclear to what extent he will govern amid France’s increasingly fragmented political landscape. “Macron and Trudeau are both individuals who came into politics with no strong or sincere ideology other than wanting to represent political modernity, espousing a broadly liberal-progressive platform,” said Fréderic Mérand, a political science professor at the Université de Montréal. “The paradox is that they will leave power at a time when these ideas have never been stronger, with an increasingly progressive society.” Victor Goury-Laffont reported from Paris. Kyle Duggan reported from Ottawa.