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Experienced politicians, with extensive resumes and long service, are leaving defeated, one after the other, marking negative records. The 74-year-old François Bayrou lasted just nine months as Prime Minister of France . The same electric chair had previously been used by the also 74-year-old Michel Barnier, but he lasted only three months, five less than his predecessor, the 36-year-old Gabriel Attal, who had lasted eight.
As expected, the minority government under Bayrou did not secure the vote of confidence today that it sought in order to survive and save the 2026 budget.
The fiscal wounds that do not heal
François Bayrou , as the chosen one of President Macron , found himself promoting a budget that was categorically rejected by the French opposition parties that have a majority in the 577-seat National Assembly. To defend it, the 74-year-old went one step further, against the odds, by asking for a vote of confidence.
In order to address growing fiscal headaches such as the public debt (3.3 trillion euros, equivalent to 114% of French GDP), the servicing of this debt (which absorbs around 7% of French GDP) and the deficit (which reached 5.8% of GDP last year, above the European limit of 3%), Bayrou proposed 44 billion euros cuts in public spending. In the same context, he also called for the abolition of two public holidays.
The parliamentary majority voted against him and now he - or rather he too - is leaving prematurely, but leaving behind everything he took on unresolved: the growing debt, the excessive deficit, the highly divided parliament and a country in constant search for governability.
But how does all this affect us - if it affects us at all?
The French geopolitical displacement
France stands out as the second largest economy in the Eurozone (below Germany), but also as the largest defense/nuclear power in Europe today. It also stands out as the main pillar among those who choose to talk about European strategic autonomy in a period of European rearmament (ReArm Europe/Readiness 2030/SAFE) and broader (due to Trump) transatlantic realignments. At the same time, it is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (the only one from the EU in the wake of Brexit), a nuclear power stronger than Britain, but also the country with the second largest EEZ in the world after the USA, a country that has a very strong defense industry (see Thales, Dassault, Safran, Naval Group and Airbus) and bases in the Indo-Pacific. Unlike the USA (but also Turkey), France has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a fact which is important for countries that have invested diplomatic/international political capital in UNCLOS, such as Greece.
France has, in other words, a multi-level displacement which de facto influences international developments, either by its presence (through bilateral or multilateral agreements such as, for example, the European Intervention Initiative EI2), or by its absence (after the end of the French military Operation Barkhane in 2022 and the withdrawal of the French from the Sahel).
Taking advantage of this displacement, Paris has recently found itself (re)promoting the two-state solution on the Palestinian front (see New York Declaration). This is in view of the United Nations General Assembly expected before the end of September in the USA.
Many are reassuring, arguing that French foreign and defense policy passes mainly through the Élysée Palace and that, therefore, it is unaffected by the constant changes of prime ministers. On the other hand, however, the fluidity of the domestic political scene cannot but give rise to distractions, confusion and uncertainty.
Competitors rubbing their hands
Not coincidentally, there are foreign leaderships (such as Turkey under Erdogan) that face Emmanuel Macron's France in a competitive manner and that, in this context, could now rejoice in seeing the French president being squeezed within French borders. At the same time, there are also foreign political forces (of the far Right and the far Left) that would now like to draw new momentum from the example of the rise of Macron's political opponents, whether we are talking about the far-right National Rally (RN) duo of Le Pen and Bardella or the Left of Insubordinate France (LFI) of Jean-Luc Mélenchon .
Within such a context of political developments, however, unprecedented situations are now emerging that cannot but influence French decision-making centers on the road to the next French presidential elections which - barring major unforeseen circumstances - are expected in 2027.
Scenarios for the next Prime Minister
When President Macron took the political risk and led France to early parliamentary elections in the summer of 2024, after the bitter electoral defeat of the European elections for him personally and his party, the country's prime minister was Gabriel Attal. However, since then, from the summer of 2024 onwards, France has changed three prime ministers ( Gabriel Attal, Michel Barnier, François Bayrou ) and is now preparing for a fourth.
Who could be next? Names such as those of Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecorny, Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin, Labor/Health Minister Catherine Vautrin and Finance Minister Eric Lobar (who, incidentally, had collaborated with the Socialists as an advisor in the 1990s) have already been made public.
But why should the next one succeed where the previous ones failed?
In this case, the problem obviously has nothing to do exclusively with individuals but with the political context and the power relationships between political forces, as they are now taking shape after eight years of Macron's presidency, against the backdrop of an unprecedentedly divided parliament (where no parliamentary group has an absolute majority), a minority government that brings unpopular cuts (albeit a minority one), and an equally divided international environment of growing challenges, while Macron himself is now heading towards the exit, since he will not have the right to run for president again in the next elections, which are normally scheduled for 2027.
Attal was very different from Barnier, as the youngest prime minister in the history of the Fifth French Republic, in contrast to Barnier who was the oldest when he took office in 2024. What they have in common, however, is that both were led to the exit after a period of just a few months.
Conflicting moods
In 2025, the French opposition - not all of it, but only a part of it - would like to see the country return to the polls early, not only for the parliamentary but also for the presidential elections, if Macron is forced to resign early. The 47-year-old French president insists on rejecting these scenarios, reiterating his intention to remain in power until 2027. However, even those who consider a new resort to the (parliamentary) polls inevitable, underline the visible possibility that the next Parliament will be approximately the same as the previous one in terms of correlations. In other words, if we accept this scenario as a given, multi-partyism is here to stay and French political forces will have to learn to live and govern with it, without clear parliamentary majorities, on the road to the next presidential elections in 2027.
Prospects for an exit
What could possibly get France out of the new government impasse? Olivier Faure's Socialists could potentially save any new government, but only if Macron chooses a prime minister from within their ranks. Indicatively, the names of former prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve, former finance minister and European commissioner Pierre Moscovici, and even Faure himself have been mentioned. This would, however, provoke a reaction from the center-right Republicans, whom Macron also needs to govern, but also, on the other hand, the reaction of the Left, which has been working together with the Socialists in recent years within the framework of the opposition New Popular Front (Nouveau Front Populaire – NFP).
Protest demonstrations
The only thing certain now, given today's circumstances, is that Bayrou is leaving, while the French are preparing to return to the streets with the protest demonstrations and the strike mobilizations scheduled for September 10 and September 18 respectively.
