Macron’s Authority in Tatters as Prime Minister Resigns After Four Weeks

France lurched deeper into crisis on Monday as Sébastien Lecornu quit less than a month after taking office, hours after unveiling a cabinet that landed with a thud across the political spectrum. The departure of President Emmanuel Macron’s fifth prime minister in under two years is more than a personnel shuffle. It is the clearest admission yet that Macron’s machinery of power has seized up, that his minority experiment has run out of road, and that the country is paying for it.

Lecornu’s tenure ends with the ignominious distinction of being the shortest of the Fifth Republic, an outcome baked in by the arithmetic he inherited and the political instincts of the Élysée. He promised a “break” with business as usual, notably renouncing the nuclear option of Article 49.3 to ram legislation through a hostile lower house. What arrived instead looked suspiciously like continuity: a cabinet dominated by Macron loyalists, absent any real outreach to the left or far right that now shape parliamentary reality. Within hours, both blocs were sharpening the knives. The right blasted a cabinet that “does not reflect the promised break,” the far right demanded dissolution, and the left dismissed the whole exercise as yet another bout of Macronist improvisation that ends in paralysis.

Lecornu tried to pin blame on “egos” and a lack of compromise in Parliament. That misses the point. The deadlock dates to Macron’s disastrous 2024 snap elections, which produced no majority and sent a blunt message: the center’s mandate has evaporated. Instead of adjusting, Macron kept swapping prime ministers and shuffling portfolios in the hope that a new face could sell the same product. Voters noticed, parties noticed, markets noticed.

The economic price tag is now inescapable. Paris equities slid at the open; French borrowing costs have climbed to decade highs, overtaking peers once synonymous with risk. Fitch knocked France’s rating down in September, citing political instability and a swollen deficit. A 2026 budget was due next week. That timetable is a fantasy now. At best, France drifts toward a “continuation” budget that keeps the lights on and avoids choices; at worst, it courts a bruising standoff over spending that could further shred confidence.

Macron presents himself as the indispensable fixer while refusing to build a coalition with forces he has spent years scorning. He can appoint yet another prime minister—perhaps from the left, perhaps in a flirtation with the far right, but credibility is gone. He can call fresh elections, risking a rout that hands the keys to his fiercest opponents. Or he can resign and trigger a presidential race no one asked for. Each option reflects the same failure: a president who cannot admit that the center he promised to renovate is now an empty house.

This latest collapse also carries a foreign-policy price. Paris has been a pillar of European support for Ukraine and a loud voice in EU energy and climate debates. A government that cannot pass a budget is unlikely to set the tone in Brussels. Allies, already wary after months of French churn, will mark down France’s weight until domestic politics stabilise. In Kyiv, the signal is worse: ammunition pledges and long-term security guarantees require political capital that Paris no longer possesses.

Macron’s defenders insist that France’s institutions are resilient and that a technocratic path can be found through the wreckage. The bond market does not vote; the Assembly does. And the Assembly has said no, again and again, to a president who prefers tactics to trust. The revolt against austerity, the anger at perceived hauteur, the contempt for procedural shortcuts: these are not passing moods. They are a verdict.

There are exits from this cul-de-sac. They begin with honesty. A caretaker government can submit a stripped-down budget that protects the essentials while postponing grand designs. A formal, written coalition agreement, common in the rest of Europe, alien in Paris, could trade real policy compromises for stability. A president who wants to keep his office must stop governing like a lone candidate on a perpetual campaign and start treating his rivals as partners in a shared republic.

For now, Lecornu’s resignation is not a surprise; it is a symptom. The shortest-lived premiership of the Fifth Republic did not fail because its holder was unequal to the task. It failed because the task, keeping Macronism alive without a majority, a message, or a mandate, was impossible. France is out of patience and the markets are out of indulgence. And Emmanuel Macron, out of moves, is down to one last choice: change course or be swept aside by those who already promise to do it for him.

By I. Constantin