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10-10-2025
PARIS: After eight years in office, Emmanuel Macron’s position as president is coming under increasing pressure as France’s political crisis escalates.
Macron once called himself maître des horologes, master of the clocks but his command of timing is not what it was. For the third time in a year his choice of prime minister has resigned and opinion polls suggest almost three-quarters of voters think the president should step down too.
Macron has repeatedly said he will not leave office early, and France is now waiting to find out if a new government can be formed, or if he has to dissolve parliament.
How did we get here?
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced his resignation at the start of a day of political drama on Monday, after only 26 days in the job.
Hours later he said he had accepted Macron’s request to stay on for another 48 hours until the end of Wednesday to hold last-ditch talks with political parties “for the stability of the country”.
The unexpected twists were the latest in a long series of upheavals that began with Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call a snap parliamentary election in June 2024. The result was a hung parliament in which Macron’s centrist partners lost their majority and had to seek alliances with other parties.
The leader of one of those parties, Bruno Retailleau of the conservative Republicans, pulled out of Lecornu’s government 14 hours after it was announced.
It’s all about France’s debt
The big challenge facing Lecornu and his two predecessors has been how to tackle France’s crippling national debt and get over the ideological divisions between the centre-ground parties who could be part of a government.
Early this year public debt stood at €3.4tn (£2.9tn), or almost 114% of economic output (GDP), the third highest in the eurozone after Greece and Italy. France’s budget deficit this year is projected to hit 5.4% of GDP.
Michel Barnier and François Bayrou lasted only three and nine months respectively before being ousted in confidence votes as they tried to tackle the deficit with austerity budgets.
Lecornu did not even make it as far as presenting a budget plan. Criticism poured in from all sides as soon as he presented his cabinet on Sunday afternoon and by Monday morning he had decided his position was untenable.
He blamed his departure on the unmovable stance of parties who, he said, “all behave as if they had a majority”.
All the parties have an eye on the next presidential votes in 2027, and they are also gearing up for the possibility of snap parliamentary elections in case Macron dissolves parliament again.
What happens now?
Lecornu has been deep in discussions with party representatives and has until Wednesday evening to present a “platform of action and stability” to Macron.
Who are the key figures in this crisis?
The leaders who have been calling on Macron to resign for months are on the hard right and radical left.
Marine Le Pen and her young lieutenant in the far-right National Rally, Jordan Bardella, are ready for elections and have refused Lecornu’s invitation to talk.
Jean-Luc Melenchon of the radical left France Unbowed (LFI) has been agitating for Macron’s impeachment, although that seems unlikely. He is backed by the Greens.
Olivier Faure’s centre-left Socialists were allied to the radical left during the last elections but have been talking to Lecornu on condition that he forms a left-wing government. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
