France’s Macron pressed to end political ‘mess’
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, faces growing pressure to resign or resign to end political chaos that has forced the resignations of five prime ministers in less than two years.
The 47-year-old centrist president has repeatedly said he will seek a second term that ends in 2027.
But calls for resignation, long confined to the fringes, entered the mainstream during one of the worst political crises in France’s current system of government since the creation of the Fifth Republic in 1958.
On Tuesday, Edouard Philippe, Macron’s first prime minister in 2017 under outgoing Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, said it was time for a new president to break the deadlock as he held last-ditch talks to form a new government.
Speaking to RTL radio, Philippe said Macron must “leave in an orderly manner” to allow a path out of the crisis.
Political turmoil in the euro zone’s second-largest economy was front-page news across Europe at a time when US President Donald Trump demanded the continent do more to defend itself and help Ukraine.
Markets spooked, investors are closely watching France’s ability to reduce a yawning budget deficit.
French stocks fell 1.4 percent on Monday and the risk premium on French government bond yields rose to a nine-month high in the crisis.
“It’s a mess. It makes you sad,” said Brigitte Gries, a 70-year-old retiree in Paris.
“We are becoming a bit of a laughing stock around the world right now,” added Soufiana Mansour, a taxi driver in the city of Montpellier.
“Unfortunately, we are a bit of a clown in the world and in Europe.”
Philippe, who polls show is the best-placed candidate to lead the political center in a battle of succession, was the second of Macron’s former main ministers to distance themselves from him.
Gabriel Attal, another Macron loyalist, was blunt in his criticism.
He was prime minister for a few months last year before Macron called a vote that sent him to a hung parliament with three ideologically welcomed blocs.
“Like many French people, I no longer understand the president’s decisions,” Macron said after asking LeCornu, who had just violated his resignation, to return to the rivals for final dough talks.
In an interview published in Le Parisien newspaper late Tuesday, another former Macron Premier and current caretaker education minister, Elisabeth Borne, said she was open to suspending the pension overhaul she is steering through parliament.
The left has called for the 2023 bill to be scrapped.
LeCornu, whose 14-hour rule was the shortest in modern French history, was given two days to find consensus.
However, Attal said someone who attended a meeting of the parliamentary group called for Macron to resign.
Lecornu, meanwhile, has met with Macron’s centrist alliance and conservative leaders, who agreed that finding an agreement on next year’s budget was a priority.
He will need others, including socialists, to have the numbers needed to form a majority in the National Assembly — at least to pass a budget for next year.
Lecornu now plans to speak to the opposition in the afternoon and Wednesday morning, but the far-right national rally has told the national rally that they see no point in these talks and will not skip them.
Party chiefs Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen instead said: “Repeat their calls for the dissolution of the National Assembly.”
The RN undertakes opinion polls, but these polls suggest a re-election is likely to produce another divided parliament, with no group holding a majority.
Australian Associated Press, The Beating Heart of Australian News. AAP is Australia’s only independent National Newswire and has been providing accurate, reliable and fast news content to the media industry, government and corporate sectors for 85 years. We inform Australia.
