The youngest (Gabriel Attal), the oldest (Michel Barnier), the first openly homosexual (Attal again) and the least enduring (Sébastien Lecornu). Emmanuel Macron’s prime ministers are full of records, or had the French president not equaled François Mitterrand’s record of reaching seven heads of government since the beginning of his term. The difference? In Mitterrand’s time, presidential terms lasted seven years and the Socialists served two, while Macron is just over halfway through his second five-year term.
With the resignation of Sébastien Lecornu, on Monday, after just 27 days as head of the government and a few hours after announcing the composition of the executive, France plunged a little deeper into the political crisis that has been going on since Macron called early legislative elections following the victory of the far right in the European elections in June last year. The president ended up giving his outgoing prime minister until Wednesday night to stabilize the situation, after which Lecornu said he believes that the specter of the Assembly’s dissolution has been removed and that Macron will appoint a new head of government. It remains to be seen for how long, because few believe that the crisis will stop here.
Looking at the scenarios presented to the president, the truth is that none seem particularly encouraging for the EU’s second economy. After all, if Macron chooses, as everything indicates, to appoint a new prime minister – the eighth! – nothing guarantees that it will last longer than Lecornu, with the National Regrouping having already threatened, through its de facto leader, Marine Le Pen, that it will “censor everything”. And if the eighth falls, will you name the ninth, and the tenth, and so on until May 2027? Deadlock.
In the opposition, the pressure is on the president to call new legislation. But there is also no guarantee that the result will not be a repeat of 2024, with three large blocs – the extreme left, the extreme right and the president’s centrists – almost tied, with no clear government majority. Deadlock again.
The other alternative – which Macron has rejected – would be to resign the president himself and bring forward the presidential elections. Unable to run for office, Macron has already seen some of the candidates in his political field – starting with Attal and former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe – begin to distance themselves from him. But the polls are far from guaranteeing victory for a centrist, be it one or the other, in a very likely second round against Jordan Bardella, the current leader of RN, pushed into a candidacy because Marine Le Pen is prevented by the courts from advancing. Deadlock again.
Surrounded by impasses, the images that circulated of Macron, in a somber black overcoat, walking alone on the banks of the Seine after Lecornu’s resignation are no surprise. How lonely is the role of the president who, as the Economist wrote, revealed himself to be more Icarus than Jupiter.
Executive editor of Diário de Notícias