French President Emmanuel Macron in Bormes-les-Mimosas, southern France, on Aug. 17. Macron’s room to manoeuvre is shrinking with the third toppling of a prime minister in 14 months.Philippe Magoni/The Associated Press
Another prime minister gone. Another crisis unfolding. In France, what once shocked is now routine.
Prime Minister François Bayrou submitted his resignation Tuesday after losing a crushing confidence vote in parliament. The third toppling of a head of government in 14 months left President Emmanuel Macron scrambling for a successor and a nation caught in a cycle of collapse.
Later Tuesday, Macron named that successor: loyalist Sébastien Lecornu, a one-time conservative protégé who rallied behind his 2017 presidential run.
Bayrou, 74, lasted just nine months in office. Even that was three times longer than his predecessor.
He gambled on a budget demanding over €40-billion in savings. The plan froze welfare, cut civil-service jobs, and even scrapped two public holidays that many French see as part of their national rhythm.
Bayrou warned that without action the national debt, which is now 114 per cent of GDP, would bring “domination by creditors” as surely as by foreign powers.
Instead, he united his enemies. The far-right of Marine Le Pen and a left-wing alliance voted him down, 364 to 194. Polls showed most French wanted him gone. By the time lawmakers cast their ballots, Bayrou already had invited allies to a farewell drink.
Former French prime minister Francois Bayrou speaks at the National Assembly before the no-confidence vote.Benoit Tessier/Reuters
Macron appears boxed in
Lecornu becomes Macron’s fourth prime minister in under two years. The problem is not the personnel, though. It is the arithmetic.
Since Macron’s snap election in 2024, parliament has been split into three rival blocs: far left, centrists and far right. None commands a majority. France has no tradition of coalition building and every budget becomes a battle.
Macron has ruled out another election for now. Le Pen insists he must call one. Opinion polls suggest her National Rally would cement its lead if he did. With just 18 months left in his presidency and his approval rating at 15 per cent, the risk for Macron is existential.
Anger rising in the streets
On Monday night, about 11,000 demonstrators feted Bayrou’s ouster outside town halls in “Bye Bye Bayrou” farewell drinks.
Some came for celebration. Many stayed to organize.
Wednesday has been declared a day of action under the slogan “Block Everything.” Protesters plan to shut fuel depots, highways and city centres. The government is deploying 80,000 police.
France has seen mass uprisings before: pensions in 2023, the yellow vests in 2018. But this time the anger runs deeper. It is not just about one reform. It is about austerity, inequality and the sense that governments keep collapsing while nothing changes.
People celebrate outside the City Hall (Hotel de Ville) of Nantes after Bayrou's resignation on Monday.SEBASTIEN SALOM-GOMIS/AFP/Getty Images
The budget presents a trap
The numbers are stark. France’s deficit stands at nearly 6 per cent of GDP, which is about €198-billion. EU rules demand it be cut below 3 per cent.
Bayrou’s cure was cuts that fell on workers and retirees. Voters saw this as unfair. After years of tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy, patience has snapped. Polls show an overwhelming majority of French people want higher taxes on the ultrarich.
Earlier this year, the lower house passed a rich tax – a 2-per-cent levy on fortunes above €100-million. It would have hit fewer than 2,000 households but raised €25-billion annually. Yet Macron’s pro-business allies, historically wary of scaring off investment, killed it in the Senate.
Bayrou pressed on with cuts that hit the working and middle classes the most.
For many, the contrast was glaring: austerity for millions, protection for billionaires.
President is under pressure
Macron’s room to manoeuvre is shrinking, and new elections could hand Le Pen even greater power.
Convicted of embezzlement and barred from office for five years, she is appealing her sentence from January. In the meantime, she promotes her protégé Jordan Bardella as a ready prime minister. The prospect is one Macron dreads.
Abroad, Macron seeks to project French influence in Ukraine and Gaza. At home, he looks cornered. Even whispers of resignation can be heard, though his departure is unlikely.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen delivers a speech during a debate before the confidence vote on Monday. An election could hand her National Rally party more power.Benoit Tessier/Reuters
History is repeating itself
Four prime ministers in 16 months. A debt crisis grinding the economy. A nation paralyzed by political deadlock. It sounds like France today. In fact, it was France after World War II.
Out of that paralysis, Charles de Gaulle built the Fifth Republic, a system meant to banish such chaos forever. Seven decades later, the republic he forged to ward off collapse is confronting the very crisis it was designed to prevent.
Politics is now fractured into three camps. With no tradition of compromise, unlike Germany or Italy, the result is stalemate.
“The question posed now is that of the survival of our political system,” political analyst Alain Duhamel told the newspaper Le Monde. “In 1958 there was an alternative in the form of de Gaulle. Like him or detest him, he unquestionably had a project.”
Former French prime minister Francois Bayrou addresses the National Assembly on Monday.Christophe Ena/The Associated Press
Why it matters
France is the eurozone’s second-largest economy, its only nuclear power and a permanent United Nations Security Council member. Prolonged instability in the country reverberates far beyond its borders.
France’s political difficulty weakens Europe’s hand against Russia. It rattles investors and undermines the credibility of EU fiscal rules.
At home, it chips away at trust in the state itself. France’s welfare system – pensions, health care, education – is not just policy. It is identity. Each attempt to trim the structure feels like an assault on the model of solidarity that defines modern France.
The road ahead is not routine
The appointment of Lecornu, 39, will test whether the Fifth Republic can still deliver stability. He will face the same trap that consumed Bayrou: pass a budget in a parliament that cannot agree.
Gabriel Attal, a former premier from Macron’s camp, calls the cycle of collapse “an absolutely distressing spectacle” and proposes installing a political mediator to help forge a strong coalition. His warning is blunt: France cannot keep toppling governments every few months.
De Gaulle built the republic to end the chaos of the 1950s. Now, as protesters prepare to blockade the nation, many fear even that safeguard is failing.