The Collapse of the French Government
Tuesday, Sept 9th, 2025
World News - The Collapse of the French Government
Economists
France has been plunged into fresh political turmoil after Prime Minister François Bayrou lost a resounding confidence vote in parliament, securing only 194 of 558 ballots, forcing his resignation and leaving President Emmanuel Macron scrambling to find a successor. The defeat, triggered by Bayrou’s failed push for €44bn of budget cuts to tame a 5.4% deficit, saw opposition parties from the far left to the far right unite against him, marking the country’s fourth collapsed government in under two years. With bond yields nearing Italian levels, Fitch poised to issue a ratings update, and unions planning mass strikes and protests in the coming days, the country now faces a combustible mix of political paralysis, restless markets, and street unrest. Macron’s options are unpalatable: either risk another election that polls suggest would hand Marine Le Pen’s National Rally a majority, despite her ban from running, or strike an uneasy pact with the Socialists at the cost of conceding to their demands for a wealth tax—both choices threatening to further erode his authority and deepen France’s ongoing crisis.
Tech — Nebius Surged on Microsoft Deal
Nebius shares surged more than 60% after the Amsterdam-based AI infrastructure provider announced a landmark deal with Microsoft worth up to $19.4 billion over five years, its first long-term contract with a major tech company. Under the agreement, Nebius will supply GPU-powered computing resources from a New Jersey data center to help Microsoft meet soaring demand for AI workloads, particularly from OpenAI, which has been scrambling for additional cloud capacity. The deal, worth $17.4 billion through 2031 with an option for an additional $2 billion, marks a major milestone for Nebius, formerly Yandex NV, which has been expanding rapidly in the U.S. with new offices in San Francisco, Dallas, and New York. Already one of the year’s top-performing tech stocks, with its market value more than doubling before Monday’s announcement, Nebius said it is now exploring financing options to accelerate its growth in response to the surge in demand.
Business - China’s Curiosity With Crypto
Economists
The U.S. is moving assertively to entrench the dollar’s position in global digital finance by embracing regulated dollar stablecoins, with over 99% of stablecoins (valued at $280bn+) now pegged to the greenback—an approach backed by recent legislation and showcased by figures like Eric Trump at Hong Kong’s Bitcoin Asia conference, where bitcoin traded at $110,143. This jars against China’s ambitions to reduce dollar reliance, highlighted by efforts to settle more trade in local currencies and by cabinet plans for a “roadmap” to boost the yuan’s global use, potentially via yuan-backed stablecoins. However, China’s tight capital controls, 2021 ban on crypto trading, and the relative scarcity of yuan-denominated assets offshore limit such stablecoin projects, making Hong Kong—with its capital freedom and new strict stablecoin regime—an experimental ground for stablecoins, most of which are expected to be pegged to the Hong Kong dollar (itself fixed to the U.S. dollar). Paradoxically, a boom in Hong Kong-based stablecoins could actually increase global demand for U.S. dollar assets, further strengthening the dollar’s digital dominance, while also making it trickier for China to promote the yuan internationally—an irony that highlights the complexity and geopolitical consequences of stablecoin adoption in Asia.
Culture - Lambasting Mediocre Men
Economists
Female pop stars are increasingly lambasting mediocre men in their lyrics, reflecting a broader social shift where women, empowered by greater economic independence and higher education, are becoming choosier about partners who meet basic standards of maturity and responsibility, like doing chores or showing emotional awareness. Singers like Sabrina Carpenter and Dua Lipa criticize men for being “slow,” “useless,” or emotionally unavailable, a stark evolution from older themes in pop music that focused more on universal heartbreak to now candid confessional storytelling highlighting real frustrations with subpar suitors. This trend mirrors demographic and societal changes, including the growing gap between young men and women in education and socio-political engagement, with many women remaining single by choice due to limited suitable male counterparts, while some male artists push back through their own music questioning these critiques.
The Daily Spark
Splitting employment growth into tariff-impacted sectors and sectors not directly impacted by tariffs shows that the slowdown in job growth is broad-based, and job growth in tariff-impacted sectors is now negative, see chart below.
Quote of the Day
“When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.” ― Henry David Thoreau