France has plunged into yet another political crisis as Sébastien Lecornu, the country’s prime minister for less than a month, abruptly resigned on Monday, October 6, 2025, sending shockwaves through an already fractured government. His departure, accepted swiftly by President Emmanuel Macron, marks the third time in under a year that a French prime minister has exited under the weight of parliamentary discord and budgetary gridlock.
Lecornu’s resignation came mere hours after he unveiled his new cabinet, a lineup that immediately drew fire from across the political spectrum. The first cabinet meeting, scheduled for Monday afternoon, was thrown into uncertainty as news broke of Lecornu’s decision to step down. According to France 24, Lecornu explained in a national address that “each political party is behaving as if they have their own majority in parliament,” and that the “conditions were not fulfilled” for him to continue in office. He lamented the “profound rupture” among parliament members, accusing some of refusing “to do their job as parliamentarians” during crucial budget negotiations on pensions, taxes, and unemployment.
Lecornu, a longtime Macron ally and the only minister to have served continuously since Macron’s 2017 election, was widely viewed as the president’s last reliable option for holding together a minority government. His resignation, therefore, has sparked reactions ranging from disbelief to outright calls for a complete overhaul of France’s political system. As reported by TIME, Lecornu pointedly refused to invoke Article 49.3 of the French constitution—a controversial measure that allows the prime minister to push a bill through the National Assembly without a vote—saying that doing so would only deepen the political divide.
The cabinet reshuffle that preceded Lecornu’s resignation was itself a flashpoint. Bruno Retailleau, a senior figure in the center-right Republican party, criticized the new cabinet for failing to deliver the promised “break” in parliamentary deadlock. Meanwhile, the far-right National Rally’s leader Jordan Bardella derided the government as “the last Macronists clinging to the raft of the Medusa,” insisting it represented “absolutely nothing of the break that the French are expecting.” Bardella and Marine Le Pen, the National Rally’s most prominent figure, have since called for snap general elections, arguing that only a new mandate from the people can resolve the impasse.
Adding to the pressure, prominent opposition figures from both the right and left have seized on Lecornu’s departure to demand President Macron’s own resignation. François-Xavier Bellamy, a Republican member of the European Parliament, declared, “We are here to serve the country, not to serve as a crutch to a political system incapable of renewing itself.” Marion Marechal, another right-wing firebrand, placed the blame squarely on Macron, urging him to “take responsibility and resign.” On the opposite end of the spectrum, Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the left-wing France Unbowed party, echoed the call for Macron to step down, warning, “We are at an impasse. As long as we delay in addressing the heart of the problem, everything will only get worse.”
The instability at the top reflects a deeper malaise in French politics that has persisted since July 2024, when Macron dissolved parliament and called for snap elections in a bid to secure a clearer majority after his party’s setback in the European Parliament vote. Instead, the elections produced a hung parliament, with ideologically opposed factions refusing to cooperate. Since then, France has cycled through prime ministers—Michel Barnier, François Bayrou, and finally Lecornu—each unable to muster enough support to pass a national budget or implement needed reforms.
The immediate trigger for Lecornu’s resignation was the fierce backlash against his cabinet appointments, especially the controversial nomination of former finance minister Bruno Le Maire as minister of the armed forces. Facing the prospect of a humiliating defeat in the National Assembly, Le Maire withdrew from the cabinet on Monday in a bid to defuse the crisis. According to the BBC, this move did little to quell the turmoil, as the Élysée Palace announced that Lecornu had been given 48 hours to attempt one last round of negotiations to produce a "stability plan" for the country.
France’s political deadlock is compounded by mounting economic woes. The country’s deficit hit 5.8% of GDP in 2024, and national debt stands at a staggering 114% of GDP—third highest in the eurozone after Greece and Italy. Attempts to rein in the deficit through spending cuts and tax hikes have repeatedly run aground in parliament, with each prime ministerial administration since 2024 falling to no-confidence votes or budget rejections. Deutsche Bank’s Yacine Rouimi told CNBC that if the government remains paralyzed, France may have to operate under a special law, maintaining spending at 2025 levels and leaving the deficit hovering around 5.0–5.4% of GDP.
As Lecornu attempts to broker a last-minute compromise, the options before Macron are stark. He can appoint yet another prime minister—France’s sixth in under two years—though finding a candidate with enough cross-party appeal seems a tall order. Alternatively, he could dissolve the National Assembly and call new elections, a risky move given that Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is currently polling at 32%, ahead of the left-wing New Popular Front at 25%. Macron’s own party is languishing in the polls, raising the specter of a rout for the pro-Macron center and a dramatic shift to the right.
Despite mounting calls for his resignation, Macron is seen as highly unlikely to step down before his term ends in 2027. Political scientist Douglas Yates told CNBC, “The one thing I can say with security today is that Macron is not going to announce his own resignation and so it would seem that the easiest thing to do would be to name another prime minister, which he does like I change shirts.” Yates added that Macron is unlikely to risk fresh elections after the “catastrophic” results of the last snap poll, which only deepened France’s political polarization.
Some analysts speculate that Macron might attempt to reach across the aisle and appoint a prime minister from the center-left Socialist Party or perhaps even the Greens, in hopes of piecing together a fragile coalition. However, this would likely require painful compromises, including possible reversals of Macron’s signature reforms such as the increase in the pension age. According to Berenberg Bank economist Salomon Fiedler, “this would likely open the door to some painful reversals of his previous pro-growth structural reforms and fiscal slippage.”
As the clock ticks down to Lecornu’s Wednesday deadline for a stability plan, all eyes remain on Paris. The political drama has already rattled financial markets, with stocks falling sharply on the Paris exchange amid fears that France’s leaders are unable to chart a path out of the crisis. Should Lecornu fail to secure an agreement, Macron will face a fateful decision—one that could reshape the French political landscape for years to come.
In the corridors of power and on the streets, the question now is not just who will govern France, but whether the country’s fractured democracy can find a way to govern itself. For a nation famed for its political passions and revolutions, the weeks ahead promise more uncertainty—and perhaps, a few more surprises.
