France is in chaos, Macron will now have to appoint the sixth prime minister in just over three years. Lecornu had just presented his list of ministers.
The new French government ends in an inglorious way. After just 27 days from the appointment, Sébastien Lecornu resigned as a prime minister (accepted by President Macron), thus establishing the absolute record for the shortest mandate in the history of the fifth French Republic.
The resignation of lecornu
The premature end of the Lecornu government takes on even more surreal outlines if we consider that only Sunday 5 October, The Elisee had announced with a certain solemnity the appointment of the first 18 ministers who should have been part of the new executive.
The first council of ministers had been scheduled for Monday 6 October, in the presence of the Head of State, while Tuesday 7 October Lecornu should have pronounced his general policy speech at the National Assembly. An appointment that the Prime Minister had defined crucial, aware of the complex political situation in which the government did not have the majority of the National Assembly and was already under the threat of a motion of no confidence by the opposition.
Lecornu’s resignation came after the support of the majorityin particular of the centrists and some allies of the moderate right, with the leader of the Republicans Bruno Retailleau who had harshly criticized the composition of the government, which did not reflect the promises of renewal (12 out of 18 ministers had been confirmed).
The opposition had immediately criticized the government, with Marine Le Pen which had defined the choices of the ministers “pathetic” and “identical” to previous governments, while the extreme left of France Insoumise He had denounced a “procession of returns”.
The ball now returns to President Macron, which will have to appoint a new government for the sixth time in just over three years. While Italy knows levels of political stability never had, France now seems to have taken the non -enviable scepter of “the most unstable country of Eurpa”.
The French economic crisis
The flash fall of the Lecornu government represents only the last episode of a Political and economic crisis which has its roots in now chronic structural problems. Since 2022, France has seen five governments successful in just three and a half years, with an instability that has no precedents in the recent history of the country.
This permanent stall situation is the direct result of the legislative elections of 2024, When Macron decided to dissolve the Parliament after the boom of the far right at the European Championshipshowever, obtaining a national assembly divided into three almost identical blocks numerically: the left coalition, the centrists of Macron and the right of Marine Le Pen.
In the meantime, public debt has reached record levelstouching the 3,416.3 billion euros in the second quarter of 2025, equal to 115.6% of GDP. The situation of the public deficit is even more alarmingwhich in 2024 touched 168.6 billion euros, equal to 5.8% of GDP, almost double compared to the 3% limit set by European treaties.
The projections for 2025 do not offer better prospects, with a deficit expected at 5.4%, while by the end of the year France will have to spend 67 billion euros only for interest on debt.
The weight of the interests on the debt has now become the most relevant item of the public budget. In 2024 the expenditure was 60 billion, it will rise to 66 billion in 2025. A trajectory that risks suffocating all the other items of public spending, while the country has now entered the tunnel of an unprecedented political crisis in the fifth republic, the proverbial light, however, is still not seen.
