GenEI flash analysis – 08 October, 2025 (#1)

Sébastien Lecornu’s resignation: France’s political infighting means more for the EU than meets the eye

  • Author: Avtansh Behal

By France’s recent political standards, the morning of October 6, 2025 should have been anything but stormy.

The previous night, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced his cabinet, ending a month of tense political negotiations between all parties. The month only seemed to accentuate France’s bulging in-tray: Two general strikes on 10 and 18 September illustrated growing pains over a delayed budget amid fears of spending cuts as the country scrambles to reverse rising public debt.1 

In this context, the cabinet announcement was a welcome end to the impasse, allowing France to finally address the thorny questions over the 2026 budget. With Lecornu’s general reputation as a safe, reliable operator, there is little wonder that the delayed announcement was met with a general wave of relief in the French and the European press, eager to see France get to work on pressing issues.

In a bizarre turn of events that echoed Liz Truss’ premiership, Lecornu and his newly minted cabinet were already out of office the next morning. His 27-day reign is easily the shortest for a French Prime Minister, beating a record set by Michel Barnier only a few months earlier.2

How did things come to this, and where do Emmanuel Macron and the EU go from here?

Tragic exit or a sleight of hand?

For all the relief upon the announcement of the new government, a closer look revealed a number of familiar faces. Education minister Élisabeth Borne and Overseas Territories Minister Manuel Valls kept their posts, as did Jean-Noël Barrot (Foreign Affairs) and Gérald Darmanin (Justice). The closely watched Economy portfolio went to the former Industry Minister Roland Lescure, while Amélie de Montchalin was also retained as Budget Minister.

For a Prime Minister who had started his tenure promising a clean break from the past, stressing the need to work differently with opposition parties, this was a show of poor optics, no matter the underlying reasons. In the midst of a budgetary crisis, France spent an entire month trying to put together a government, only to come up with a minor cabinet reshuffle. Unsurprisingly, opposition parties were swift to condemn the appointments through the night of 5-6 October, spelling the end for Lecornu’s tenure and leaving Emmanuel Macron searching for his eighth Prime Minister in as many years.

However, the resignation may just be a legal maneuver. Lecornu may well wish to name a new government in light of the critiques, but is unable to do so unless he resigns. In theory,3 such a resignation does not prevent President Macron from simply reappointing Lecornu as his Prime Minister, inviting him to start afresh.4 France is under no obligation to call fresh elections until 2027, unless Macron dissolves the National Assembly prematurely. 

49.3 reasons for concern

For all the disappointment surrounding the composition of his cabinet, Lecornu delivered an unexpected break from the past in promising to not invoke Article 49.3 of the Constitution during budget negotiations. An equivalent to executive orders, Article 49.3 allows the government to pass legislation through the National Assembly without a vote.5 The provision has become increasingly controversial in recent years, having been invoked 27 times in Macron’s second tenure alone, and cited by Macron’s critics as evidence of high-handed leadership.

Lecornu’s commitment to eschewing this provision in the middle of mounting budgetary tensions was a major concession. It is quite strange to see the National Assembly’s willingness to throw this olive branch out to air criticism on the incoming cabinet. Chief among the critics is Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN). The far-right party is currently the largest bloc in the French parliament, but kept out of power by its rivals forming a majority coalition. It also stands to benefit the most from any political deadlock. The French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP) currently projects it to finish top of the first-round voting for the 2027 elections,7 with 37% of the vote.8

While the RN’s belligerence is understandable, calls for Lecornu to resign were not a one-party affair. On the left, the French Greens communicated their readiness to put forward a PM candidate, while the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) echoed Marine Le Pen in calling for Macron’s resignation. The LFI agreeing with the RN is a particularly curious sight, given the two parties agree on little else.

On the centre-right, Horizon’s leader, former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, was quick to call for early presidential elections, likely another coded call for Macron to resign. Surprisingly, even Gabriel Attal sought to distance himself from Macron, pointing to a possible rift within Macron’s own party on the president. As put by Christophe Jakubyszyn, editorial director at France’s leading business daily Les Echos, France’s political class is content to play petty politics.

From the left to the centre-right, the willingness of the political spectrum to show its cards is deeply confusing. IFOP estimates Philippe (25%) and Attal (20%) to be Le Pen’s likeliest rival in the presidential run-off, with a patchwork of parties (including the LFI) polling at 10-13% each. It is highly likely that these parties will eat into each others’ votes in some way or the other, to the benefit of the RN. 

It is plausible that Attal and Philippe in particular are counting on the front républicain, expecting the voters to come together and block the far-right from winning the presidency outright in the second round. Indeed, this happened in 2017 and 2022, but the Rassemblement National finished second in the first round in both cases. 

This author is not so optimistic, believing that the Rassemblement National’s shift to being first-round favourites is not to be taken lightly. Having already adhered to the front républicain in two previous elections, a degree of voter fatigue is not impossible, which might lead the far-right to the presidency.

Does Macron consider the unthinkable?

In 2017, Emmanuel Macron was an energetic leader at the head of a surprise third force in French politics, driving a wedge in a long-standing two-party system on a platform of hope and exuberance. His early pronouncements, including the 2017 Initiative for Europe speech at Sorbonne University expressed a desire to reposition France at the heart of the European project, a welcome change in energy compared to his predecessors François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy.

The ebullience of his first tenure has given way to a more jaded figure in 2025. Having long lost the parliamentary majority and the positivity of his first tenure, Macron now faces an increasingly partisan opposition, a disaffected voter base and an increasingly urgent economic and budgetary crisis. In an attempt to make concessions to the opposition, France backtracked on an ambitious climate policy, effectively renouncing the leadership it had assumed at the time of the COP21. Not only has this proven insufficient, it has also alienated the urbane, progressive voter base that underpinned Macron’s rise in the first place. 

Although Macron continues to reiterate his intention to see out his term, he must find a sixth PM in two years, begin to address a national budgetary crisis, and deal with an increasingly irascible opposition to do so. Put differently, this forces Macron to devote the final eighteen months of his tenure to domestic issues, a policy area he has never seemed entirely comfortable with since the beginning of the Yellow Vests movement in 2018. 

Partly due to his performance at the EU-level, one gets the impression that he is more at home with foreign affairs, where he can deal with like-minded leaders on ‘progressive’, legacy-building issues such as European sovereignty or climate change, far from the minutiae of daily domestic politics. Domestically, Macron can cut a bemused figure, failing to empathise with popular protests which fail to share his globalist outlook.

This author believes that, having seen France lurch from one domestic crisis to another since 2022, Macron is unlikely to be enthused by the prospect of more of the same for the next 18 months. Indeed, should the next Prime Ministerial appointment go the way of Michel Barnier, François Bayrou and Sébastien Lecornu, it is not impossible that Macron resigns sometime in 2026, leaving the parties to deal with the political fallout.

This is not an entirely isolated opinion – Polymarket roughly gives a 30% chance of Macron resigning by June 30, 2026 at the time of writing. 

Can Europe afford a shock Macron departure?

The short answer would be, no. Over the past month, elections in Moldova and the Czech Republic have caused much trepidation in Brussels, concerned not only about the possibility of Eurosceptic populists taking power, but also the threat of Russian intervention in elections. One only imagines the commotion a shock presidential election in Paris would provoke, particularly with a frontrunner (Rassemblement National) known to be sympathetic to Moscow.

Could a pro-EU candidate be capable of replicating Macron’s influence? Observing Macron’s initial rise in Europe, one notices three peculiar factors, none of which are available to frontrunners such as Attal or Philippe at the moment: 

  1. Macron was elected in 2017 on the back of great goodwill, immediately legitimising him in Europe and providing him with a longer ‘honeymoon’ period than most. Although the Rassemblement National could replicate such support, a Eurosceptic France would be a completely different story;
  2. In 2017, Germany was on a surer footing politically, with Angela Merkel being the perfect foil to Macron’s pro-EU enthusiasm. A new French President would have to work with a similarly stymied Germany, limiting what the Franco-German engine can achieve;
  3. In contrast to his immediate predecessors, Macron was particularly willing to think ambitiously about the EU early in his tenure (think the 2017 speech at Sorbonne). A new French President would not have the same luxury, and would likely spend the first part of their tenure focused on domestic matters.

For the next few months, it is likely that France and the EU remain in a strange holding pattern. France’s domestic situation – coupled with Macron’s low approval rate – makes it unlikely to lead any EU initiatives.9 But Macron’s standing and goodwill make him a valuable partner with Germany, as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. It is similarly unlikely that a new French president manages to replicate Macron’s unusual love-hate relationship with Donald Trump, which at least provides Paris with a platform to be heard in Washington D.C.

Conclusion: A wake-up call

Sébastien Lecornu’s sudden resignation is more than a French domestic crisis – it is an important reminder to the EU of the need to start planning for life beyond Macron by gradually phasing him out of his central, vocal role in the EU’s discourse. Replacing one of the EU’s most consistent and committed defenders will be far from easy, but Brussels must not be caught napping. A well-planned transition will not only benefit the EU, but also spare Macron’s successor the burden of dealing with his predecessor’s long European shadow.

Footnotes:

  1. Currently 114% of GDP, compared to 81.8% in the EU.
  2. Best known as the Chief Negotiator for the Brexit negotiations, Barnier lasted 90 days as French PM from September to December 2024.
  3. Article 8 of the French Constitution, governing the appointment of the Prime Minister, is silent on the matter.
  4. Meanwhile, Lecornu has requested that he not be reappointed Prime Minister, raising the plausibility of such a move: https://www.bfmtv.com/politique/gouvernement/sebastien-lecornu-a-dit-a-emmanuel-macron-qu-il-ne-souhaitait-pas-etre-renomme-premier-ministre_AN-202510060790.html
  5. However, the National Assembly may block a 49.3 by filing a successful motion of no-confidence and taking down the government.
  6. The measure was used only once during his first tenure, and 89 times in the 59 years preceding Macron’s election in 2017.
  7. France follows a two-round voting system for both presidential and parliamentary elections. A short explainer is available here.
  8. All projections used by IFOP in this study highlight the best-case performance, as opposed to median performance.
  9. France’s next European Council presidency is set for the mid-2030s

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