The deepening political paralysis in France, where President Emmanuel Macron has struggled with a succession of minority governments consequent to a fractured parliament thrown up in the snap July 2024 general elections, could not have shone a less favourable light on the machinations of mainstream parties. Underscoring the gravity of the crisis, on October 6, Sebastien Lecornu, a confidant of President Macron and former defence minister, resigned as Prime Minister, only to be reinstated in a caretaker role to that high office on Friday. The episode followed the collapse of the cabinet Lecornu had put together a few hours earlier last week, the shortest-lived in modern France, prompting his resignation just 27 days after he originally assumed the mantle in September.
His two predecessor premiers had similarly been voted down following motions of no confidence moved by the opposition. The issues in all three instances were broadly similar: a protracted parliamentary deadlock relating to the passage of the annual budget. The centre-left Socialist Party is demanding the imposition of a 2% wealth tax on France’s 0.1% superrich in the 2026 national budget and also the repeal of Macron’s flagship 2023 pension reforms that raised the age of retirement from 64 to 66 years. The incumbent PM Lecornu has indicated that there is room for some manoeuvre around both issues. But negotiations are delicately poised, given the overarching objective in the Eurozone’s second-largest economy to limit the fiscal deficit within 5% of the Gross Domestic Product, still way above the bloc’s 3% ceiling. While the majority of legislators from the centre-left Socialists and the centre-right Les Republicains (LR), a constituent in the current coalition, are evidently opposed to fresh elections, that has not so far translated into any practically viable proposal. A premature return to the hustings would expose the country to the risk of an almost imminent triumph that polls predict for Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party, the single largest in the current National Assembly.
A sobering lesson for mainstream parties is the French electorate’s strategic voting, demonstrated in Jacques Chirac’s stunning re-election in the May 2002 presidential run-off, after a narrow first round. The contest made world headlines when all the mainstream parties and voters, across ideological divisions, businesses and trade unions, rallied to support Chirac so as to block the far-right National Front leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, from occupying the Elysee Palace.
President Macron’s woes have only compounded in the current term, after losing the absolute majority he commanded in the first. He must be ruing his ill-fated move in June 2024 to call a general election, barely two years into parliament’s current tenure, consequent upon the European polls, where RN topped the national tally of seats in the new Strasbourg legislature. He has since resisted calls for his resignation. To silence his critics, he must restore some stability.
