French President Emmanuel Macron called early elections in July to get what he called “clarification” from voters about the leadership and direction they want for the country.
Voters made clear a major loss for his party and an incompetent parliament that rebelled after just three months, overthrowing the prime minister chosen by the presidentMichel Barnier, due to the reduction of the budget deficit.
Now there are several simple solutions for Macron as he searches for a way out of the mess his rivals (and even some allies) say he created.
“It is difficult to find a path to stability,” admitted François Patriat, a senator who has long supported Macron.
With his party without a parliamentary majority, Macron was marginalized on domestic affairs during Barnier’s short tenure, but the prime minister’s downfall temporarily puts the president back in the driver’s seat.
Macron must now choose a new prime minister, who he hopes will last longer Barnierdespite facing the same difficult parliamentary equation, where three blocs, none of which has a majority, are vying for control.
A deadline for adopting next year’s budget is also looming, putting Macron under pressure to hurry, although interim measures may be passed to avoid a US-style shutdown.
While the president took two months to nominate Barnier, Macron will have to find a replacement faster this time. Any delay risks making him look weak, while further unsettling financial markets – French borrowing costs jumped last week on fears that Barnier’s budget move will fail.
A prolonged stalemate could also increase calls for Macron to step down and call early presidential elections before the end of his term in 2027.
The president is scheduled to address the nation Thursday night to explain the way forward. He has already started scouting potential candidates for Matignon, the prime minister’s office, and reportedly wants to nominate someone in the coming days.
Names circulating in the French media include loyalist Sébastien Lecornu; Defense Minister François Bayrou, another ally and veteran centrist; and Bernard Cazeneuve, former Socialist Prime Minister. A technocratic government led by a civil servant or a non-political person is also possible.
At stake for Macron is salvaging the rest of his second term, while protecting what remains of his record, particularly on the economy, where he has enacted business-friendly reforms and tax cuts.
But the president’s ability to impose a solution has been undermined by the shrinking of his centrist Renaissance Party after snap elections in July, with its remaining lawmakers no longer able to dictate terms to potential partners.
With little tradition of coalition building in France, Macron has instead been reduced to encouraging rival political parties to work together to ensure stability and at least pass a budget.
His task is made more difficult because he is the leader of the extreme right Marine Le Pen and her Rassemblement National party, and the far-left France Unbowed, were encouraged by their joint success in ousting Barnier.
Franck Allisio, a senior RN lawmaker, said the party would continue to push its priorities such as improving the purchasing power of the French and reducing immigration. “Our demands by definition remain, whoever the prime minister is, since the expectations of our voters have not changed,” said Allisio, who did not rule out the possibility that the party would topple the government again.
Coalition building is further complicated by political heavyweights at the head of various parliamentary parties and factions competing to succeed Macron.
“They are all obsessed with the 2027 elections, which shape the behavior of party bosses” such as Le Pen and far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, said Jean Garrigues, a historian specializing in the French parliament and constitution. “That’s what makes compromise in parliament so difficult.”
Some leading players have called for a different approach to choosing the next prime minister, suggesting that lawmakers instead negotiate a form of non-aggression pact among willing parties that would set out several central policies to be followed in return for an agreement not to topple the government.
Boris Vallaud, head of the Socialist group in the assembly, said he would be open to such an initiative, without clarifying whether the group would completely break away from its current far-left allies, who oppose any cooperation with Macron. Left-wing leaders have signaled that they will demand Matignon in exchange for such cooperation, which risks the RN opposing them.
Gabriel Attal, Macron’s former prime minister who heads the centrist Ensemble pour la Republique party, called for a similar alliance that would stretch from the moderate left to the moderate right, but exclude what he called “extremes.”
“This would get us all out of a situation where the government is held hostage by Marine Le Pen,” he said, although he admitted he did not know if that was possible.
Amid intensifying politicking, the 2025 budget to replace the one overturned in Wednesday’s vote – which was supposed to deal with France’s degraded public finances – must somehow be passed.
If parliament and the government cannot meet the constitutional deadline to pass it – which has happened only twice in modern French history – there may have to be temporary solutions, such as passing emergency legislation and executive measures to change the previous year’s tax and spending rules.
Analysts at investment bank Morgan Stanley, who believe this is the most likely scenario, say it would push the deficit to 6.3 percent in 2025 – compared to around 6.1 percent this year – compared to the 5.6 percent projected in Barnier’s austerity plan belt.
The temporary fixes “would lead to a 2025 budget that would not have the tax increases that were planned in the current plan, which would allow for deficit reduction,” said Jean-François Ouvrard, managing director of economic research at Morgan Stanley.
The worst-case scenario would be an unprecedented failure to pass a full 2025 budget once a new government is installed in January.
“We are entering uncharted territory here,” said constitutional law expert Denis Baranger of the University of Paris-Panthéon-Assas. “This is a moment that is not actually provided for in the constitution.”
Illustration by Aditi Bhandari
