The art of governance confronts leaders with a constant stream of financial, institutional, political and social crises, each demanding swift, sustained and responsible action. Meeting these challenges requires courage, humility and accountability. Yet today, French politics resembles a drawn-out and tiresome summer tragedy. Since July 2024, the country has been mired in a serious institutional deadlock, triggered by fierce parliamentary disputes over the budget, a standoff rooted in President Emmanuel Macron’s increasingly fragile governing style.
President Emmanuel Macron refused to appoint a prime minister from the Left bloc, which emerged at the top of the results following the July 2024 legislative elections. Although the New Popular Front (NFP) coalition won, it did not secure enough seats to govern outright; it needed 289 seats to hold a majority in parliament. Macron attempted various political maneuvers to solve this complex institutional equation. Since September 2024, he has appointed three prime ministers: the first was censured by members of parliament, the second lost a vote of confidence, and the third resigned just 14 hours after being nominated.
The series of prime ministerial appointments by the president has turned into a pitiful political drama, eroding public trust in elected lawmakers, particularly toward the president’s own base in the lower chamber. That partisan base has since imploded under the weight of the ongoing crisis. As a result, the president now finds himself cornered, especially after last week's melodramatic episode: the fall of the shortest-serving prime minister in the history of the Fifth Republic since 1958, a premier who lasted just 14 hours in office.
On Friday, Macron reappointed Sebastien Lecornu as prime minister, just five days after his resignation. His reappointment came after four days of political turmoil, confusion and uncertainty. The 39-year-old head of government had no time to present his program before the deputies in the lower chamber. He resigned early Monday morning, plunging the country deeper into crisis and adding yet another layer to the stormy saga of France’s 2024 summer political soap opera.
Just 14 hours after announcing his cabinet, a team seemingly hand-picked by the president, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu resigned. He had described himself as a "warrior monk" during a Wednesday interview on the national public TV network, a metaphor that aptly reflects the current political crisis: a president who sees himself as Jupiter and an appointed prime minister who doesn’t even know how long he will last.
The Cabinet of Mr. Lecornu’s first government was composed mainly of the president's allies and some heavyweight leaders from the “opposition,” like outgoing Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, the hardline conservative leader of The Republicans (LR). Retailleau played a key role in destabilizing the newly appointed prime minister and his cabinet. Over the weekend, he also fractured his own party’s unity, sparking a serious identity crisis within the LR. After months of fame and being the darling boy of far-right media because of his anti-Muslim and Arab immigration stands and measures, Retailleau has made his future uncertain with his latest moves.
In this battle of egos between the president and the political party leaders, re-nominated Lecornu must submit a budget to the lower chamber by today's legislative deadline. This will be a tough fight for Lecornu, as he faces unsustainable public spending and has to bring down a budget deficit projected to come in at 5.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) this year, while the president will fly to Sharm el-Sheik to attend an international summit to discuss the U.S. president’s proposal to end Israel’s war on Gaza.
Another and a final risk the president is taking with Lecornu’s second trial of government is that Macron is becoming increasingly isolated, with only 14% of public support according to the latest polls. He is also losing the backing of his core base (known as "le socle common"), which has largely lost trust in him. Among those now speaking out against the president is his first prime minister, Edouard Philippe, who has openly called for Macron to resign. Even Gabriel Attal, another former prime minister, who was once Macron's spoiled child and current head of the president's own party, has stated that the president should appoint someone from outside his political camp.
Macron’s two-term presidency reveals that France is facing a deep, multidimensional crisis, socioeconomic, political and now institutional. Politics is no longer divided between the Right and the Left, nor is the socioeconomic divide limited to the privileged versus the struggling in metropolitan France. It has become a question of outdated political systems. Ironically, Macron was elected in 2017 on that very narrative, writing a book titled "Revolution," preaching to end the old political order that had plagued French politics for decades.
From this stance, politics has always relied on symbolism and myth, yet the unraveling began during Macron’s first term, in the fall of 2018, with the rise of the nebulous Yellow Vests ("Gilets Jaunes") movement. This protest became a spark that extended the ongoing crisis. What began as a socioeconomic revolt later resurfaced through mass opposition to pension reform in the fall of 2023 and winter of 2024. The controversial bill was pushed through using the unpopular Article 49.3 of the Constitution by then-Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne – a mechanism the newly reappointed prime minister has since promised not to use during his term.
As far as the retirement reform law goes, Macron had assured left-wing leaders he would postpone any changes until 2027. That became the apple of discord, exposing not only the Macron administration's growing incompetence but also the complacency of a biased, corporatist press that once sold him to voters in 2017 as the "Mozart of finance" and the savior of France’s public debt.
Consequently, he is responsible for the political crisis. Having lost three consecutive elections, 70% of the population wants him to step down. This was the headline this week in the weekly political magazine Le Point: "Mr. President, leave with your head held high!" His neoliberal policies have deindustrialized France and led the country astray. This is the general impression one gets when speaking with the average French citizen these days.
The media's expressions of political rejection toward the president and the political establishment reflect a broader anti-system, anti-corporatist movement. This sentiment has been inflamed by both international and domestic affairs.
Subsequently, the two sworn enemies in French politics – the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) and the far-right National Rally (RN) – have consistently called for the immediate removal of whoever the president appoints as prime minister. Together, they control more than a third of the seats in the lower chamber and will vote for a motion of no confidence. If they secure the support of the Socialists, Lecornu's second government will fall next week.
In this context, the president will be obliged to dissolve parliament; it will be the second time during his second term. Thus, in this conflictual relationship between the president, the angry people, the fragmented opposition and the minion elites, we see the result of the bankruptcy of the classical political parties and their alarmist discourse – exacerbated by the far-right RN party and media – and the rise of hate speech in the country. Far-right pundits and politicians have played a major role in the banalization of verbal violence.
In sum, average people in France believe that they are "nothing," when in fact it is in their hands to challenge the oligarchy tightening its grip on their basic rights and democracy in a country whose pillar institution, the Fifth Republic, is dislocating, leaving the art of governing to politicians lost in their egos.
