French politics has rarely been a stranger to upheaval, but the resignation of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu on Monday, October 6, 2025, has plunged the nation into a fresh and dizzying crisis. Lecornu, a close ally of President Emmanuel Macron, stepped down less than a month after his appointment and only hours after unveiling his cabinet, making his government the shortest-lived in the history of France’s Fifth Republic. The move sent shockwaves through Paris and beyond, rattling financial markets and leaving the country’s political future hanging in the balance.
Lecornu’s resignation capped off a tumultuous few weeks marked by bitter infighting, failed negotiations, and a sense of mounting urgency as France faces a ballooning deficit and an increasingly fractured parliament. According to AP, President Macron accepted Lecornu’s resignation on Monday, just a day after the prime minister had named his government. The announcement was as abrupt as it was unprecedented, with the French presidency issuing a terse statement confirming the departure.
For Lecornu, the writing was on the wall almost from the moment he took office. Appointed nearly a month ago, he inherited a political landscape deeply scarred by the snap elections of 2024. Those elections left no party with an absolute majority in the National Assembly, forcing the government to rely on fragile coalitions and uneasy alliances. As CNN reported, Lecornu was the fifth person to hold the prime minister’s office in just two years—a statistic that underscores the chronic instability gripping the Macron administration.
His downfall, however, was triggered by a perfect storm of political missteps and entrenched opposition. After weeks of consultations with parties from across the spectrum, Lecornu finally announced his cabinet on Sunday, October 5, 2025. Yet the lineup, which largely retained ministers from the previous government, sparked outrage on both the left and the right. Critics seized on his decision to appoint former finance minister Bruno Le Maire to the defense ministry—a move seen by many as emblematic of Macron’s refusal to break with the past.
Bruno Retailleau, leader of the Republicans and newly reappointed interior minister, was blunt in his assessment: “The composition of the government does not reflect the promised break,” he posted on X, echoing the frustration of many conservatives who had hoped for a more decisive shift away from Macron’s playbook. The far-right National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, was even more scathing. Bardella accused Macron of orchestrating the cabinet and leaving Lecornu with “no margin of maneuver,” while Le Pen declared, “We’re at the end of the road, there’s no solution.”
The left, too, found little to cheer. Arthur Delaporte, spokesperson for the Socialist Party, called the government “ephemeral” and said it was further evidence that “Macronism plunges the country once again in chaos.” As the backlash mounted, it became clear that Lecornu’s attempt to build a consensus had failed spectacularly. In a televised address on Monday, he admitted defeat: “The conditions were no longer met for me to perform the duties of prime minister.” He blamed “partisan appetites” and a lack of cross-party negotiations, lamenting that “political parties are continuing to act as though they all have an absolute majority in the National Assembly.”
One of Lecornu’s boldest moves had been his promise to abandon the use of clause 49.3 of the French constitution—a controversial tool that allows the government to force legislation through parliament without a vote. His predecessors had relied on this prerogative to pass budgets and other key bills, often at the cost of inflaming opposition. Lecornu’s gamble was to seek compromise instead, but as he put it, “I was ready to compromise, but each political party wants the other to adopt its whole platform.” The result was deadlock, with neither the left nor the right willing to give ground.
The immediate trigger for Lecornu’s resignation was the realization that he would not be able to get a budget passed by the end of 2025—a critical deadline as France grapples with soaring debt and deficit. According to The New York Times, the first draft of the national budget was supposed to be submitted for ministerial approval on Tuesday, but that timetable has now been thrown into disarray. The prospect of a fresh fiscal crisis spooked investors, with the CAC 40 stock index tumbling more than 2 percent and the spread between French and German debt widening to near-record highs.
The political fallout was swift and severe. Opposition parties wasted no time in calling for Macron to dissolve the National Assembly and call new elections. Marine Le Pen, whose National Rally is now the largest party in parliament, argued, “The only wise decision is to return to the polls.” Jordan Bardella echoed that sentiment, promising that his party would be “ready to assume its responsibilities.” On the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon of France Unbowed also called for Macron to step down, while François-Xavier Bellamy of the Republicans insisted his party had “nothing to fear from a dissolution.”
The sense of crisis was compounded by the broader context of political paralysis that has gripped France since the 2024 snap elections. With no party holding a clear majority, the lower house of parliament has been deadlocked between left-wing blocs, a tenuous center-right coalition, and a resurgent far right. As Reuters noted, Lecornu’s government was an uneasy coalition of centrists and conservatives, but it proved incapable of bridging the deep ideological divides that now define French politics.
For Macron, the stakes could hardly be higher. He has now cycled through three prime ministers in under a year and five in two years—a pace of turnover virtually unheard of in modern French history. The president’s critics accuse him of clinging to a pro-business agenda that voters rejected in the last elections, and of failing to build a government that reflects the new political reality. As Bardella put it, “There can be no return to stability without a return to the ballot box.”
Meanwhile, the economic consequences of the turmoil are already being felt. The sharp drop in French stocks and the euro underscores the nervousness of investors, who fear that continued political instability could undermine France’s recovery and its standing within the European Union. The uncertainty over the budget, in particular, has raised questions about the country’s ability to tackle urgent challenges before the next presidential elections in 2027.
As France enters yet another period of political limbo, all eyes are on Macron and the choices he will make in the coming days. Will he heed the calls for new elections, or attempt to cobble together yet another government from the fractured remains of his centrist alliance? One thing is certain: the events of the past 24 hours have left the country more divided and uncertain than ever before, with no easy solutions in sight.
