The fall of Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government led to the second collapse of a French government in 62 years – exactly 62 years after the first, in October 1962. It’s historic because the second prime minister came from a right-wing coalition, marking the first time since the creation of the Fifth Republic in 1958 that such a situation occurred. The Fifth Republic was established to end political instability and the anarchic parliamentary system.
Barnier did resign and the president accepted his resignation according to Article 50 of the constitution. He will serve as caretaker government chief until the president appoints a new prime minister in the coming days.
In the aftermath of this political drama, France has been grappling with instability since June when President Emmanuel Macron decided to dissolve the French lower chamber (L'Assemblée Nationale). Ever since, the political situation has worsened and the specter of political instability and economic anxiety has haunted both the president and the country. This president sought to change France’s century-old political culture, which has been defined by the aggressive role of political elites, the media and political parties toward political leaders – or, as they call it, the monarch, despite the end of the monarchy in France in 1792.
Yet, Macron, who entered the political arena in late 2016, sought power and led a country where politics has been marked by violence, treason and cruelty. He positioned himself in 2017 as a new young president and a voice of change. In fact, he managed to dismantle the two main conventional political parties, the Socialists and the Gaullists, in both 2017 and 2022 – a revolutionary paradigm in French politics. He even published a book called La Revolution.
President Macron’s governing style and economic program quickly clashed with public opinion and the political opposition, both left and right. This began early on with the progressive media during the Benalla scandal in the summer of 2018 and worsened later with the long-running Yellow Vest protests. The conflict continued through last winter with a large anti-pension and retirement reform bill, which ex-Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne used Article 49.3 of the Constitution to pass without a vote in the National Assembly.
The no-confidence vote was related to Barnier’s government’s failure to convince Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally Party (RN), to back a budget that left-wing and far-right groups in the lower chamber judged too austere, with more taxes and spending cuts to address France’s spiraling deficit. This occurred despite concessions made to address Le Pen's concerns.
This helps explain the main reason for the no-confidence vote that toppled Barnier’s minority government: 331 lawmakers from the left-wing coalition of New Popular Front (NFP) and the far-right coalition of the RN, joined by lawmaker Eric Cioti’s group in the National Assembly. This unlikely alliance of the NFP and the far-right seeks to end President Macron’s political career and force him into early retirement.
Le Pen is positioning herself as the likely candidate for the 2027 French presidential election. Since the outcome of the July 2024 parliamentary elections, she has positioned herself as the “kingmaker” in French politics, given the incoherent axis in the newly elected lower chamber. Barnier, however, tried to bring Le Pen and her allies to the negotiating table in recent weeks. He made several concessions to the far-right alliance but Le Pen’s tactics seemed more focused on shifting the balance of power than on negotiations.
This shift drew criticism from the so-called centrist or presidential alliance in the lower chamber, as well as from pro-president media and the president himself, who in his 10-minute speech to the nation, blamed Le Pen and the NFP coalition – particularly the France Unbowed Party (LFI) and its leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon – for causing chaos.
The melancholy that dominates France’s general mood these days persists, despite the country being on a national celebration: the extravagant preparation for the restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral, five years after the fire on April 15, 2019. Notre Dame did open its wooden high door with an official speech by Macron, attended by world leaders, such as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. This was followed by a liturgical ceremony to mark the cathedral's official reopening, in a secular republic where laicite has become, under Macron’s presidency, the de facto “religion of state.”
Despite this, France’s domestic political crisis is weighing heavily, both locally and internationally. Paris is losing its prestige and influence on the world stage, with its diplomacy in sharp decline in both Europe and the MENA region. The latest diplomatic setback occurred in the African Sahel, where N'Djamena and Dakar decided to end military cooperation with Paris and demanded the removal of French military bases. This has exposed France to one of the most multi-dimensional crises it has faced since May 1968.
If Macron steps down, it would be a historic moment for France, as no president in the modern republic has resigned apart from Charles de Gaulle in 1969 following the result of a constitutional reform referendum, months after the violent 1968 societal riots that dramatically changed France’s political and social trajectory.
This partisan judgment extends beyond the RN. Left-wing lawmakers, after their victory in last July’s elections, have been calling for the president’s resignation.
The French executive branch works at two levels: the prime minister controls day-to-day domestic affairs, while the president has significant powers, including foreign policy and defense. Constitutionally, Macron is right; there is no article stipulating that a president must resign after their government is ousted by the National Assembly. Macron has made it clear that he will not step down as requested by the LFI Party and the RN Party. However, there is a risk that if the political drama he calls “political fiction” is not resolved by next summer, he may be forced to dissolve the National Assembly again next June.
This remains a possibility, as the French lower chamber is divided into three almost equal, but very heterogeneous, factions: the left-wing, right-of-center and far-right, which have been clashing for the past two and a half years.
Macron has explicitly rejected calls for new legislative elections. The French Constitution stipulates that new elections cannot be held within 12 months of the previous ones. His supporters, including media and lawmakers, are defending the president but according to ELAB, 63% of public opinion favors his resignation.
In a post-Barnier government fall context, Macron met on Tuesday afternoon with the so-called Republican arc that goes from the right to the left political parties to not censure the next government if the latter does not use the controversial Article 49-3 of the constitution – in other words an act of non-aggression pact from the Republican arc. This time Macron excluded the two main political parties of the opposition in the lower chamber: the LFI and RN Party on Tuesday afternoon. Macron’s strategy, however, is to take away the leisure from Le Pen for being France’s kingmaker, as on his left, Macron is in the process of imploding the NFP coalition, hence he removes the threat of his resignation and early presidential elections requested by the RN and the LFI.
Macron is likely to appoint a new prime minister today — he may appoint a new premier, François Bayrou, leader of the center-right Democratic Movement Party, in the coming days. Bayrou, however, belongs to the old political establishment that Macron sought to dismantle when he came to power in 2017.
In summary, politics is full of irony. A president who sought to usher in a “modern” style of governance now finds himself relying on help from a politician who has been in the arena for five decades, an ardent defender of parliamentarism – a system that would mark the end of Macron’s political vision.
