PARIS — With President Emmanuel Macron expected to reveal his next big move on Wednesday or shortly afterwards, he’s still keeping everyone guessing on how he plans to pull France out of a deepening political and economic crisis.
But as the crisis drags on, faith in his ability to conjure a rabbit-out-of-the-hat remedy to France’s woes is waning and the president is conspicuously losing the support of some of his erstwhile loyalists, notably three of his former prime ministers.
His options now center on either calling a snap general election or bringing in his sixth prime minister since his current term began in 2022. This time, however, he could potentially name a center-left Socialist as PM and task them with breaking an impasse over how to pass the billions of euros of budget cuts needed to steer the EU’s No. 2 economy away from a debt crisis.
In a juddering political car wreck, the president on Monday accepted the shock resignation of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, after barely 27 days, only to then instruct him to find a path out of the latest mess by Wednesday evening.
Macron’s own camp seems exasperated. Former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who now leads Macron’s centrist party Renaissance, appeared on national television on Monday evening and said he “no longer understands” the president’s decisions.
Edouard Philippe, another former prime minister under Macron and a candidate in the next presidential election, took things one step further on Tuesday by calling on Macron to step down from office once a budget is passed, after having cycled through three governments in less than a year.
Then, twisting the knife in, Élisabeth Borne — the prime minister under whom Macron rammed through the key legislation that raised the retirement age in the face of fierce opposition — told Le Parisien she was now in favor of suspending that law and that it was “important to know when to listen and move.”
The president seems to have little road left to run, and there are mixed signals about which option he will now choose.
Election or yet another prime minister?
For some rune-readers, it is significant that he saw the heads of National Assembly and Senate on Tuesday, as he would have to meet them before calling elections.
But an election is a high-risk gambit that would probably weaken his centrist Renaissance party and strengthen the far-right National Rally.
The president himself ruled out this prospect in August and a former Macron adviser said the president hadn’t changed his mind since.
“It was out of the question,” he said. Even if France becomes “a laughing stock” with interminable government talks, the aim still had to be to defeat the far right.
That would mean the main option is to choose a new prime minister. But why should the next one be any more successful in passing the massive budgetary belt tightening required?
“I think he still has one card to play,” said OpinionWay pollster Bruno Jeanbart. “He can nominate someone from the Socialist Party and let them form a government.”
On Tuesday evening, the head of the Socialist Party Olivier Faure confidently said “the time had come to try out the left” ahead of a crunch meeting with Lecornu on Wednesday.
“We tried three center-right prime ministers and we’ve seen the results,” he said on French television. “We need to change policies.”
But it’s a move that would come at a cost for Macron, as Faure wants to suspend Macron’s pension reforms, and welcomed Borne’s “belated awakening.”
The leader of the Socialist Party also hinted at talks with the leader of Macron’s Renaissance party, Attal, who has now distanced himself from the president. Faure said he would be in favor of a sort of political non-aggression pact with the centrists.
According to the pollster Jeanbart, an appointment of a left-wing prime minister would also be a way of shifting the blame onto opposition parties as the Socialist Party would also struggle to pass a budget in a deeply divided National Assembly.
Coalition of the unwilling
Lecornu began his long-shot attempt to resolve the current chaos with talks Tuesday morning that included key lawmakers and party leaders, who have backed Macron since his first election win in 2017.
The meeting concluded with the participants agreeing to focus on two urgent priorities: passing a budget and finding a solution to a statehood crisis in the Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia.
But there is no indication Lecornu will be able to succeed in 48 hours at a task he was unable to complete in the 27 days leading up to his resignation.
Outgoing Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, leader of the conservative Les Républicains, was invited to Tuesday’s meeting but chose not to attend despite having served as a minority coalition partner in previous Macron-backed governments.
Retailleau’s public criticism of Lecornu’s government — specifically over just how many Macron allies it included — was a major factor in precipitating the government’s resignation.
The hardline conservative on Tuesday morning appeared to shut the door on further cooperation with Macron’s camp, saying his party would join a government only if it were led by a prime minister from a party opposing the president — a situation known in France as cohabitation — and otherwise urged the president to call early legislative elections.
On Tuesday evening, Retailleau closed the door firmly on joining a government that was led by either a Socialist or a centrist from Macron’s camp.
“A man or woman from the left would weaken France. It would mean more spending, more tax pressures and more immigration,” he said.
So even if France gets a new prime minister by the end of the week, there is still no obvious route out of the quagmire.
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