France’s authorities collapsed Monday after the nation’s Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu tendered his resignation lower than a day after appointing his cupboard. The resignation of the nation’s second-highest-ranking public official plunged France additional right into a political disaster that has seen a rotating solid of 5 completely different prime ministers in lower than two years.
France has been mired in political paralysis since President Emmanuel Macron, who appoints the prime minister, known as snap nationwide elections final yr that left no political social gathering with an outright majority within the parliament, which is named the Nationwide Meeting.
“The political parties continue to adopt a posture as if they all had an absolute majority in the National Assembly. And basically, I found myself in a situation where I was ready to compromise, but each political party wants the other political party to adopt its entire program,” Lecornu mentioned in his resignation speech on Monday.
French outgoing Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, who introduced his authorities’s resignation to the French president, delivers a press release on the Resort Matignon in Paris, France, Oct. 6, 2025.
Stephane Mahe/REUTERS
The chief of France’s far-right motion, Marine Le Pen, known as on Monday for brand new snap parliamentary elections within the aftermath of the federal government’s collapse. Le Pen’s anti-immigration, nationalist Nationwide Rally (RN) social gathering was beforehand relegated to the fringes of nationwide politics, however it has captured a substantial variety of seats within the fragmented parliament lately.
“There is no solution, there won’t be one tomorrow: I call on the President of the Republic to dissolve the National Assembly,” Le Pen mentioned in a social media publish.
Lecornu, a political ally of the more and more embattled Macron, held the place of prime minister for simply lower than a month, however solely introduced a brand new cupboard to manipulate the nation on Sunday. Lecornu’s resolution to step down makes him the shortest-serving prime minister within the historical past of the Fifth French Republic.
Fearing an ascendant far-right, which additionally swept up many seats in European Union parliamentary elections in June 2024, Macron gambled on his social gathering and its allies profitable the shock election for seats within the Nationwide Meeting that he known as quickly after. However his guess didn’t repay, and his centrist coalition misplaced an enormous variety of seats to each Le Pen’s social gathering and an alliance of far-left events.
Marine Le Pen delivers a speech previous to a confidence vote over the federal government’s austerity finances on the Nationwide Meeting in Paris on Sept. 8, 2025.
Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty
Political instability has adopted ever since, with successive governments folding after developing in opposition to a deadlocked Nationwide Meeting. The instability has been amplified by a rising nationwide debt disaster and a ballooning finances deficit which have knocked confidence within the EU’s second largest financial system.
Final month, the U.S. credit score rankings company Fitch downgraded France’s credit standing, citing “increased fragmentation and polarization of domestic politics,” and a deterioration of the nation’s public funds.
Lecornu’s predecessor François Bayrou was ousted from energy in September by a no confidence vote within the parliament after he did not push by a finances program that will have lower public spending in an effort to handle the nation’s mounting debt.
Nationwide strikes over potential austerity measures within the looming French authorities finances for 2026 have additionally brought on chaos throughout the nation in current weeks.
On Thursday, hundreds of protesters, led by college students, commerce unions and retirees, took to the streets of greater than 200 cities and cities throughout France to denounce proposed spending cuts and demand increased taxes on the wealthy.
