France: Unimpeachable
Also: Germany, Moldova, the US, and Mexico.
In today’s dispatch:
FRANCE. An attempt to dismiss Macron will fail, but it won’t help his cause.
GERMANY. Budget holes and Landtag elections constrain Scholz's options.
MOLDOVA. Another crucial November election looms.
UNITED STATES. Amid job number jitters, even Elon Musk may be looking for a role.
MEXICO. The judiciary goes on strike amid a gang war.
Geopolitical Dispatch is the daily intelligence and risk briefing of Geopolitical Strategy, an advisory firm specialising exclusively in geopolitical risk.
FRANCE. Unimpeachable
An attempt to dismiss Macron will fail, but it won’t help his cause.
France's caretaker government froze 2025 spending at 2024 levels Tuesday, an implied €10 billion cut. Discord continued within the New Popular Front (NFP), as the far left vowed it would pursue Emmanuel Macron's impeachment.
INTELLIGENCE. Since constitutional changes in 2014, presidential immunity has been loosened, but, in practice, impeachment will be difficult. By pursuing proceedings anyway, Jean-Luc Mélenchon looks like he is walking into a trap. Upsetting moderates in the NFP’s left-wing coalition, and lessening Macron’s chances of agreeing to its prime ministerial candidate, it would appear to be a dead end. But the attempt could end up hurting Macron even more.
FOR BUSINESS. Mélenchon’s vow, if genuine, could be an attempt to unwind an unhappy coalition that would rely on Macron’s Ensemble for the numbers. On the upside for Macron, this could mean an unravelling of the NFP and a new alliance from centre-left to centre-right. But it could also mean an extension of caretakers in the government and chaos in the Assembly, ultimately leading to a new election with an even greater vote for the far left (or indeed, the far right).
GERMANY. Schtuck
Budget holes and Landtag elections constrain Scholz's options.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz pushed back Tuesday on reports Germany was limiting aid to Ukraine. At the groundbreaking for a semiconductor plant in Dresden he called for a "pro-European" Germany, instead of "nationalism and resentment."
INTELLIGENCE. Scholz hopes to fund Ukraine through loans repaid from the interest of seized Russian assets, but the legalities appear even harder to agree than