Marcus Ashworth

Well, look, the new rule of French politics is it's not over until it's over, but it feels over.

It's nearly over?

The reason why I said that is because I think that snap parliamentary elections, which has been something that Macron's been trying to avoid ever since he called the last one last year, that for me has...

dramatically ramped up in probability.

So that to me looks like a very likely option.

So what Macron's done is basically put that on the table and said, okay, this is basically happening and you now have 48 hours to avoid that.

Okay, so in other words, the dividing line of parliament used to be pro or anti Macron, willing to work with him or not.

Now Macron wants the parliament to be pro or anti snap elections.

So basically all the parties around Macron, especially the center-left,

have to basically decide, are they going to risk their own jobs by letting parliamentary elections happen?

Or are they going to have one last, last, last attempt at a coalition?

But frankly, all of the energy, all of the kind of gravity I feel is slipping away hour by hour.

Well, I think, as Marcus was hinting, I've called France le big short, right?

It is le big short on a relative basis because the political crisis is unfolding very slowly and everyone can see what's happening and you can model it out.

Longer term, I think this is a political risk story in that an election changes a lot and Marine Le Pen and her number two, Jordan Bardella, are the politicians to beat.

Now, the two big questions, the two planks of Macron's legacy so far have been

Stable tax policy and an economic policy in France that is predictable and pension reform and a general reform agenda.

Those two things have been rewarded by investors over the past decade.

Those two things are starting to crack because, as we've discussed, all the parties around him, especially on the far left, on the far right, want to brush those away.

They do not want stable taxation.