The French political crisis deepens
Emmanuel Macron's second term as President of France is turning into an ordeal that, unless significant changes occur, could end with the presidency being handed to Marine Le Pen or someone from her party. The current situation in the country is Kafkaesque. Macron is trying to convince Sébastien Lecornu to reconsider and reverse his decision to resign as Prime Minister just 24 hours after presenting his government and less than a month after taking office. If the resignation is confirmed, Lecornu will be the fifth Prime Minister to resign from Macron's second term. Before him, Élisabeth Borne, Gabriel Attal, Michel Barnier, and François Bayrou have all failed. France is currently immersed in a serious institutional crisis that appears to be entrenched and from which there is no clear way out.
The cause of the chaos must be sought in the political fragmentation of the French National Assembly, where cross-vetoes make it impossible to form stable majorities. Macron aspired to govern by looking to the right with a coalition of the Macronists and the Republicans, which lacks a majority, since the pinprick between the far right and the left condemns it to deadlock. The option he has not yet explored is a government led by a Socialist and the testing of a kind of Grand Coalition in Germany, but that possibility seems remote right now.
It is as if Macron refuses to accept reality, which leads him to repeat the same mistake over and over again. What is clear is that France now needs a new formula, an imaginative operation that breaks down the barriers of traditional parties, as Macron's own emergence did in his day. The only solution is a true coalition for republican values that stands up to the far right and is capable of advancing important and fundamental reforms in a sclerotic French state that is showing signs of exhaustion. And just as conservative candidates in the legislative elections called for people to vote for communist candidates against the far right, a minimal understanding between the republican right, Macron's centrists, and the Socialists should now be possible to overcome the current impasse.
If this solution is not possible, legislative elections will have to be held again in a climate that will clearly favor Le Pen's options, as her National Rally may emerge as the only force that can guarantee some stability in the country, something similar to what Giorgia Meloni is achieving in Italy. Because what is clear is that, two years before the presidential elections, there is currently no candidate strong enough to follow in Macron's footsteps and beat Le Pen. And the various parties are more concerned with their chances of success in the presidential elections than with agreeing on a government that will get France back on track.