Michel Barnier has now become the shortest-serving prime minister in France’s Fifth Republic and the first PM to be ousted by parliament in over six decades. For in-depth analysis and a deeper perspective on the state of the European Union, following duelling political and economic crises gripping France and Germany, FRANCE 24’s Mark Owen welcomes Dr. Marta Lorimer, Author, Lecturer in Politics in the School of Law and Politics at Cardiff University.
They are not really “better” than the right wing populists, as they are creating the circumstances in which right wing populists thrive. Choosing them is just delaying the the right wing populists for one term.
Which is true, except that the damage done [by] centrists is much more easily reverted if you can stop the slide to the right. Centrists will hurt the credibility of democracy but they won’t completely gut its institutions. I.e whoever succeeds Orbán or Trump will have a massively harder to task to rebuild agencies that are actually able to work properly than the person succeeding Macron/Barnier.
Just look what Macron just did. He betrayed his voters by moving to the right. However unlike the right Macron is most likely going to allow for fair elections. So this enables a left win.