The political unrest in France is not temporary, but rather a deep constitutional crisis Pierre Boursigel
TFrench Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu – who resigned unexpectedly last week before being reappointed four days later – finally formed a new government, appointed by Emmanuel Macron, just hours before he left for the peace summit in Gaza. But few expect Macron to return from Egypt with a solution to the worsening internal political crisis over which he presides. Still fewer people have enough confidence in a Macron government to survive Next deliberations For the National Assembly.
Because this is not a traditional parliamentary crisis, but rather a crisis de pegime. Inspired by Charles de Gaulle’s vision of executive supremacy conferred by a quasi-monarchical presidential ascendancy, the system of government established by the Fifth Republic in 1958 no longer exists. Facing a hung parliament, a severe financial crisis, and a volatile international environment, the French state became paralyzed.
At the heart of the problem lies the nature of the presidential office and the policy pursued by the current president. After his defeat in the June 2024 European elections, Macron dissolved parliament and called early elections, recklessly risking insult to the far right, and then rode an unprecedented wave of support in opinion polls, gaining power.
Against all expectations, a hastily assembled left-wing coalition and a campaign of tactical voting frustrated Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. But no political group was able to achieve enough seats in the fragmented electoral landscape that resulted from the elections to govern alone. However, Macron defied democratic logic and parliamentary calculations. He rejected the centre-left’s claim that it had been given the right to try to form a government. Instead, he appointed successive conservative and centrist prime ministers to head minority administrations, unable to solve an extremely complex political equation.
It is difficult to imagine how Lecornu, a close ally of Macron, might succeed in passing a national budget where his two immediate predecessors, Michel Barnier and François Bayrou, failed, and new legislative elections seem inevitable. Calls for the president’s resignation increased It is no longer limited to extremist parties. Two of his former prime ministers Join the choir Last week. However, early presidential elections are unlikely. Macron is not obligated to vacate the Elysee before the end of his term in 2027, and he has pledged to continue doing so.
But sooner or later, he will have to return to the electorate, which may strengthen the far-right National Rally party but still elect another hung parliament. The system, whose stability depends on principled respect for the popular will and a clear majority, was never designed to facilitate – or even discourage – the emergence of common governing coalitions in the rest of Europe. The Fifth Republic may have entered its final phase. Like Macroni’s project, it began to collapse as soon as he was inaugurated.
Although Macron’s victory in 2017 was remarkable, it is best understood as the collective failure of a political generation that came of age in the late 1970s. This group, led by Nicolas Sarkozy on the right and François Hollande on the left, had none of the historical experience and little of the intellectual weight of de Gaulle or François Mitterrand. In an era of financial globalization and social and economic disintegration, they have proven unable to formulate an adequate response to voters’ concerns. Hollande’s presidential term was particularly difficult, marked by the eurozone debt crisis and an unprecedented wave of terrorist attacks.
Hollande left the country in mourning and a republic in doubt about its values and mission. Politically exhausted, he did not run for a second term, leaving the Socialists fielding a weak candidate and the left divided. Meanwhile, Sarkozy’s heirs chose another corrupt politician as their champion, and then watched his campaign collapse. In a political landscape made further destabilized by populism of all forms, Macron, who was only 39 years old, saw an opportunity and seized it smartly. He has allowed large segments of disaffected public opinion to project their desires onto his relatively blank canvas. As most voters chose to vote against the traditional major parties on the right and left, his candidacy emerged as an untried vessel for various political frustrations. In the run-off, Le Pen proved no match for his talents, and Macron prevailed.
The figure many had hoped would be transformative soon proved to be just another young man with old-fashioned ideas. Within weeks, he embraced the trappings of office and proceeded to govern the country in a meticulous, top-down administrative manner inappropriate for a turbulent and anxious country. Its supply-side, trickle-down economics have allowed rent-seekers to flourish at the expense of the broader economy.
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Constitutionally isolated from political pressure, Macron has become the divisive object of the French presidential system. Few democracies seem designed to transform legitimate political ambitions into narcissistic personality disorders. from Yellow vests From the “gilets jaunes” crisis onwards, as the regime demonstrated its inability to address public concerns, Macron consistently disparaged innovative representative mechanisms and civil society organisations. In 2022, the invasion of Ukraine and a divided opposition allowed him once again to reduce elections to a set of negative options. Another runoff against Le Pen helped him mobilize voters who care primarily about democracy.
Now Macron himself is focusing on the nation’s hostility. Perhaps his government and its dysfunctional regime will fall with him.