Mujtaba Rahman is the pinnacle of Eurasia Group’s Europe observe and the creator of POLITICO’s Past the Bubble column. He tweets at @Mij_Europe.

In a hanging trio of speeches final month, French President Emmanuel Macron sought to position the tangle of army, financial, power and local weather crises going through the world right into a single apocalyptic sample. 

The warfare in Ukraine, compounding financial and power issues, and France’s hottest and driest summer season in 60 years weren’t simply particular person boiling factors however a part of a “nice shift,” or “upheaval,” he argued. And he urged the French to arrange for a tough winter wherein they need to be able to pay “the value of liberty” and never give up to “simple-minded” rhetoric in regards to the allegedly self-destructive influence of sanctions on Russia.

He additionally mentioned the age of “carefree abundance” — in power, water, credit score and infinite technological advance — is over.

With these speeches, Macron was partly responding to criticism within the media, and from his personal allies, that he’s lacked a transparent technique or overarching imaginative and prescient for his second presidential time period. However Macron’s additionally making ready the bottom for a troubled fall and winter of power shortages, outages and widespread protest, each in a deeply divided parliament and on the streets, the place the left is threatening a “working battle” for decrease costs and better wages.

Road marches and strikes now appear possible and can quickly escalate, with mounting clamor for larger wages throughout the board and elevated state motion towards excessive meals and gas costs. This, regardless of the €40 billion already spent or allotted by the federal government, which has managed to maintain inflation in France decrease than most of its neighbors (France’s official annual inflation price fell barely in September to five.8 p.c, in comparison with over 10 p.c in the UK).

However Macron and Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne additionally face a hostile parliament, the place they’re 39 seats wanting an absolute majority within the Nationwide Meeting.

Earlier than the summer season recess, the federal government did handle to win the assist of the swing bloc of 62 center-right Les Républicains deputies on most key votes, which enabled Borne to steer her €44 billion anti-inflation and emergency spending plans via parliament virtually unscathed. However asking deputies to offer anti-inflation reduction to their constituents is one factor, asking a hostile parliament to go subsequent yr’s price range and approve Macron’s flagship plans of elevating the state retirement age and tightening situations for unemployment advantages, is sort of one other.

These insurance policies — decried by the left and the far proper — are essential to the 2 most necessary objectives of Macron’s second time period: reducing unemployment and the state price range deficit.

Macron has pledged to scale back unemployment from 7.4 p.c to beneath 5 p.c and to scale back France’s annual price range deficit — predicted to succeed in 5.5 p.c this yr — to beneath the European Union’s ceiling of three p.c by 2027. Attaining each is central to his imaginative and prescient of a French inhabitants that’s extra affluent as a result of it really works longer, and it’s important to his hopes of bringing state spending beneath management within the subsequent 4 years. 

Though, ideologically, the middle proper is broadly in favor of what Macron proposes, tactically, many Les Républicains deputies worry that their celebration’s election prospects would implode in the event that they help Macron with such unpopular reforms.

Les Républicains has subsequently made clear that the federal government shouldn’t rely on persevering with assist this fall, a place that’s prone to be bolstered by the election of the celebration’s new nationwide chief in early December.

Entrance-runner Eric Ciotti, a 61 year-old deputy from Good, is the chief of the hard-right, Macron-detesting wing of the celebration. However even reasonable center-right deputies, like Ciotti’s pro-European rival Aurélien Pradié, worry that sustaining assist for the Macron-Borne authorities will destroy the as soon as dominant however now much-weakened celebration’s possibilities of profitable the Elysée within the 2027 presidential election.

The federal government will virtually definitely need to resort to its emergency powers, beneath Article 49, clause 3 of the Structure, to push via its 2023 price range with out a vote in December. However the actual parliamentary disaster is prone to be early subsequent yr, when Borne will search elusive majorities for Macron’s plans to extend the state retirement age and tighten situations for entry to unemployment pay.

This implies Macron faces an extremely unenviable alternative subsequent yr, one between dissolving the parliament and calling an early election within the hopes of securing a majority, or accepting very restricted ambitions for his second time period in workplace. A winter of discontent is scarcely the perfect preparation for a snap election marketing campaign. Nonetheless, neither is being a lame duck — with four-and-a-half years nonetheless left of a second time period. 

However with the autumn and winter trying very tough for Macron, and the brand new yr and spring trying even worse, the president goes to have to decide on.