After turmoil, time for a Sixth Republic in France

A day after French Prime Minister (PM) Sébastien Lecornu announced his cabinet on October 5, he had to tender his resignation to President Emmanuel Macron —thereby earning the dubious distinction of being the premier with the shortest period served in France’s Fifth Republic.

- Mohan Kumar

But, in a week that was bizarre even by French standards, Macron reappointed Lecornu as PM on October 10 and tasked him with government formation and passing the national budget.

It was Macron’s act of folly in June last year —when he called for snap parliamentary elections — that led to a hung parliament with a three-way split between far-Right, Left/far-Left, and centrist parties. Since then, three PMs have come and gone in quick succession. The political reality is that Macron’s centrist alliance does not enjoy majority support in the fractured French parliament.

Macron does not have too many options at this stage. In a final act of desperation, Macron reappointed Lecornu to try and achieve consensus among the warring parties, with a view to pass a budget. If this gambit fails, the only course of action will be for Macron to call another snap parliamentary election. The trouble is another parliamentary election is unlikely to resolve matters. In such a scenario, it is quite conceivable that the far-Right party of Marine Le Pen, National Rally, emerges as the single-largest party in the parliament and claims the premier’s post. Macron will then have no alternative but to “cohabit” with a far-Right PM and accept that this will be the lasting legacy of his presidency. There have been calls for Macron to resign, but it is unlikely that he will heed these, at least for now.