The political drama in France has reached a fever pitch, with President Emmanuel Macron’s government collapsing yet again—this time in record-breaking fashion. On October 6, 2025, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu resigned just 14 hours after his cabinet was sworn in, making it the fastest government collapse in the history of France’s Fifth Republic. The abrupt resignation is only the latest in a series of high-profile exits that have left Macron’s administration teetering and the nation’s political future up in the air.
For Macron, the options ahead are all fraught with risk. The French leader, once celebrated for his command of the political stage, now finds himself increasingly isolated and under pressure from allies and opponents alike. According to the Associated Press, Lecornu explained his departure by saying, “Being prime minister is a difficult task, doubtless even a bit harder at the moment, but one cannot be prime minister when the conditions aren’t fulfilled.” After just three weeks of fruitless negotiations with political parties, unions, and business leaders, Lecornu concluded that building consensus on the critical 2026 budget was impossible. His resignation, coming so swiftly after being named to the post, has further eroded confidence in Macron’s ability to steer France through its ongoing crisis.
It’s not just the opposition that’s making life difficult for Macron. Even his closest allies are expressing frustration and confusion. As Politico Brussels reported, former prime minister Gabriel Attal, a longtime confidant, said on television, “I no longer understand [Macron’s] decisions.” Meanwhile, Édouard Philippe, Macron’s first prime minister and a likely contender in the 2027 presidential race, has publicly argued that Macron should resign before the end of his term, calling it the only way out of France’s escalating political deadlock.
The roots of this crisis stretch back to June 2024, when Macron dissolved the National Assembly and called snap legislative elections. The move was meant to check the rise of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party, but instead it delivered a hung parliament and set the stage for more than a year of near-constant upheaval. Since July 2024, the 577-seat lower house has been split among three main blocs—left, center, and far-right—with no group holding a stable majority. As a result, Macron has cycled through four prime ministers in just over a year: Gabriel Attal, Michel Barnier, François Bayrou, and now Lecornu. Each has struggled to govern effectively, hamstrung by a fractious assembly and rival factions eager to bring them down.
France, unlike countries such as Germany or the Netherlands, lacks a tradition of coalition governments. This has left Macron’s centrist Ensemble alliance trying—and failing—to cobble together enough support to pass legislation. The far left and far right, despite their ideological differences, have repeatedly joined forces to topple Macron’s minority governments. According to the Associated Press, the left was already preparing to bring down Lecornu’s new government as soon as this week, while the far right signaled it would vote against him as well.
The consequences of this instability are not just political. Investor confidence in France—the European Union’s second-largest economy—has taken a hit, and efforts to rein in the country’s mounting state deficit and debts have stalled. As one of Macron’s loyal supporters, outgoing ecology minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher, put it: “Like many of you, I despair of this circus.” The sense of dysfunction has only been heightened by images of Macron walking alone along the Seine, reportedly deep in thought and without an official statement, as he weighs his next steps.
For now, Macron has ruled out resigning himself, vowing to serve out his second and final term until 2027. He has given Lecornu an additional 48 hours from October 6 to try to find a solution, but few observers believe a breakthrough is likely. As one of Macron’s advisors told French media, if these last-ditch talks fail, the president “will face up to his responsibilities.” That could mean calling yet another round of snap elections—or, in a scenario not seen since Charles de Gaulle in 1969, stepping down from office.
The far-right National Rally party, led by Marine Le Pen and her protégé Jordan Bardella, is wasting no time preparing for a possible power grab. According to Politico Brussels, RN leaders convened an emergency meeting at party headquarters in Paris immediately after Lecornu’s resignation to discuss campaign strategy and resource allocation. Bardella declared, “We are ready to govern,” making it clear that RN intends to bring down any future Macron government ahead of new elections. Eric Ciotti, leader of the Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR) and an RN ally, announced that his deputies and those of RN had unanimously agreed to attempt to topple any government Macron proposes before elections are held.
The stakes are high. RN is now the largest single party in the National Assembly, leading the leftist NFP coalition by ten points and Macron’s Ensemble alliance by a staggering twenty points. If Macron calls fresh elections, RN could finally break the parliamentary deadlock and form a government—an outcome that would mark an historic breakthrough for the European right. As Bardella put it on his way to Strasbourg to debate censure motions against European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, “France is in the process of freeing itself from Macronism; it is time to break with Macron’s Europe as well.”
Such a development would have far-reaching implications, not just for France but for the entire European Union. RN is the largest party in the Patriots for Europe group, the right-wing bloc co-founded by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. With the recent landslide victory of Andrej Babiš’s ANO party in the Czech Republic, Patriots for Europe could soon have four governing parties among its members—double its current number. An RN-led government in France would likely bring sweeping changes to migration policy, the country’s stance on the war in Ukraine, and its approach to the conflict in Gaza, fundamentally altering the balance of power within the EU.
Of course, nothing is guaranteed. Last year’s elections showed that the left and Macron’s centrists can unite to block RN in the second round. But with the Socialists and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left La France Insoumise now at odds, it’s unclear whether they can overcome their divisions in time. Meanwhile, Macron’s personal approval ratings and those of his alliance continue to sink, and voters across the political spectrum are growing weary of the endless cycle of failed administrations.
As Luc Rouban, a political scientist at Sciences Po university in Paris, told the Associated Press, “It’s not a very good image of stability but the central institution remains the president of the Republic. I don’t think Emmanuel Macron is going to resign. He remains the leader on international affairs. So he’ll stick to his positions on the situation in Ukraine, or the Middle East and relations with the United States.”
For now, France waits—caught between a president running out of options and a far right eager to seize the moment. What happens next could reshape not only the future of France but the trajectory of European politics for years to come.
