PARIS — Marine Le Pen is trying to quash mounting speculation that she could get sidelined by National Rally President Jordan Bardella on her road to the Elysée after a series of flattering polls for her protégé.  Le Pen, who is currently banned from running in the 2027 presidential election pending an appeal of her embezzlement conviction, is in an increasingly awkward situation after two recent polls showed that 30-year-old Bardella is gaining traction as a presidential candidate at Le Pen’s expense. Asked Tuesday on TV station BFMTV why Bardella was only a plan B candidate considering his favorable polling, Le Pen said: “Because we decided as much.”   “We are the ones who decide, Jordan and me,” she said. Le Pen was found guilty last year of embezzling European Parliament funds and sentenced to an immediate five-year ban from running for public office. She will return to court in January after appealing all charges, which she has repeatedly denied and framed as politically motivated. She has said Bardella will run in her place if the appeal court upholds the election ban, but a decision won’t be known before spring.  SHIFTING DYNAMIC But while Bardella is officially his party’s plan B, polls show he is starting to outshine his boss. In an IFOP-Fiducial poll unveiled Tuesday, 44 percent of respondents said they wanted Bardella to run in the 2027 presidential election against 40 percent for Le Pen. Last week, a survey from pollster Odoxa showed Bardella winning against all the other candidates polled, beating the likes of center-right Edouard Philippe to leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Le Pen wasn’t even polled. While polls this early before an election have to be taken with a serious grain of salt, the dynamic hasn’t gone unnoticed. Renaud Labaye, the National Rally group’s secretary-general in the National Assembly and a close adviser to Le Pen, said the poll was good news for the party, showing “the dynamic was on [their] side.”  Privately, party heavyweights say they don’t doubt Bardella’s loyalty but admit his rise raises uncomfortable questions for their camp.  While Le Pen must constantly face off questions over her viability as a candidate, Bardella is triumphantly touring the country to promote his newest book, drawing crowds in what many see as an ideal launching pad for a presidential run.  A National Rally lawmaker close to Le Pen, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said Le Pen’s truly believes Bardella supports her. But, the lawmaker admitted, the book tour can also be seen as Bardella laying the groundwork for his own presidential candidacy.  

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Der fünfte Premierminister binnen drei Jahren – und ein Präsident, der am Scheideweg steht: Emmanuel Macron kämpft in Paris um seine politische Zukunft. In Berlin wächst die Sorge, was der französische Regierungschaos für Europa bedeutet. Hans von der Burchard analysiert, wie sich die Krise in Frankreich auf Brüssel, die Märkte und das deutsch-französische Verhältnis auswirkt. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview spricht Roland Theis (CDU) über das Vertrauen zwischen Paris und Berlin und die Zukunft der deutsch-französischen Achse. Zudem: Konflikte in der Koalition um die Wehrpflicht. Rixa Fürsen erklärt, was die Union mit ihrer „Kontingent-Wehrpflicht“ plant und wie es in diesem neuerlichen Streit zwischen Union und SPD weitergehen wird. Und ein politischer PR-Flop: Podcast-Marketing aus Baden-Württemberg, das mehr kostet als gehört wird. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig.Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren.

BRUSSELS — EU countries are racing to secure a deal on the bloc’s next seven-year budget before French presidential elections in April 2027, which they fear could hand power to the far right. A seismic political shift in the EU’s second-largest country could disrupt the politically sensitive budget negotiations, which must be unanimously approved by national capitals and are driven by domestic priorities.   The president of the European Council, António Costa — who will broker the final stage of the talks — is working to secure a deal in the Council by the end of 2026, his spokesperson, Maria Tomasik, told reporters on Friday. “At the European Council in December 2026, there will be blood on the walls,” said a senior EU diplomat, anticipating fierce negotiations. The diplomat, like others quoted in this story, was granted anonymity to speak freely. While French far-right National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen has been barred from running for public office after a French court found her guilty of embezzling European Parliament funds, she has challenged the ruling. Even if the decision is confirmed, the party’s second in command, Jordan Bardella, is seen as a serious contender to win the next election. The risk of a far-right victory in France is the main reason why budget negotiations are being fast-tracked, five officials and EU diplomats told POLITICO. That’s because National Rally’s far-right platform — which includes slashing France’s contributions to the EU budget and downsizing military aid to Ukraine — could throw a spanner in the Council negotiations. Jordan Bardella, is seen as a serious contender to win the next election. | Adnan Farzat/Getty Images Fueling the sense of urgency, other major EU countries, including Spain and Italy, are also set to go to the polls in 2027, adding a further layer of uncertainty to the budget talks. This rapid timeline has caused some annoyance among some, such as Italy and Poland, which are critical of the Commission’s €1.816 trillion proposal. They argue that fast-tracking negotiations makes it harder for them to make substantial changes — and plays into the hands of fiscally disciplined Northern countries, who support the Commission’s blueprint.   Costa’s timeline, however, would leave enough time for the European Parliament to make its changes before the budget comes into force on Jan. 1, 2028. BUDGET FAST-TRACK Negotiations on the EU’s next common fund are notoriously torturous. During the last round, a deal was only sealed at the end of a four-night meeting between EU leaders. But veterans of that summit, including Costa, are keen to do things differently this time. For the time being, the Danish Council presidency is fast-tracking technical talks, much to the chagrin of several EU countries that would like more time to review the Commission’s proposal. “We need time to understand better what’s been put on the table and all its implications,” said a second EU diplomat. Earlier this week, Italy and six other EU countries urged a slower pace of negotiations during a meeting of deputy ambassadors. Critics argue that the current deadlines for submitting amendments are unreasonable. Tensions are expected to come to a head next Wednesday during a budget-focused meeting of EU ambassadors. The Danish presidency wants to agree on a counterproposal for the budget — a so-called negotiating box — in time for a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels in December. Three EU diplomats said that Denmark is fast-tracking talks to bring forward the work before the Cypriot presidency, which has a very different set of priorities, takes over in January 2026. CLARIFICATION: This article was updated on Sept. 19 to make the quotation by Maria Tomasik more precise.

PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron has just turned to one of his most trusted lieutenants — Sébastien Lecornu — to break the political impasse paralyzing France. Lecornu, appointed as prime minister last week, is “the guy [Macron] drinks whiskey with at 3 a.m.,” said one government adviser, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. The former armed forces minister also often spends his holidays with Macron at the seaside bastion of Fort de Brégançon. Turning to one of the devoted inner circle has the air of a last desperate throw of the dice. If Lecornu can’t save Macron, it’s hard to see who can. Lecornu is the fifth French prime minister in less than two years and it still seems highly unlikely that he will succeed in forcing the bitterly divided National Assembly to accept the tens of billions of euros of budgetary belt-tightening that are needed to ward off a debt crisis in the EU’s second-largest economy. Even Macron knows it’s a big ask. In comments obtained by POLITICO, the president insisted the task ahead was not impossible, but admitted it was “unprecedented.” So why does Macron think Lecornu might just be the man to strike a deal? In short, the president views him as a fixer who can bridge the political divide. Lecornu got into the president’s good books by building a wide parliamentary consensus over increasing the military budget in 2023, and by helping him defuse the grassroots Yellow Vest protests that gripped the nation in 2018 and 2019. As a former conservative, he has “good relations with Les Républicains party” and represents “continuity” with the president’s past governments, Macron said. On the other hand he has “earned the respect of leftwing forces” by the way he handled France’s rearmament in the wake of the war in Ukraine. And during defense budget talks in 2023 Lecornu was seen as having listened to the opposition and taken their views on board. Sebastien Lecornu is the fifth French prime minister in less than two years. | Pool Photo by Ludovic Marin via Getty Images The key point is that Macron might not send Lecornu into battle unarmed in the way that he did his previous two prime ministers, EU veteran Michel Barnier and the centrist François Bayrou. This time, he could allow his premier to make some meaningful concessions on the core economic agenda. Until now, Macron has battled to keep his key achievements untouched, notably his controversial pension reforms and long-running opposition to tax hikes, despite election defeats in 2022 and 2024. “We’ll have to backtrack on some things, on [canceling two] bank holidays,” Macron said, referring to Bayrou’s draft budget that included removing two bank holidays. “We must be able to find a compromise.” THE MAN FOR THE JOB France’s new prime minister may not be well known to the general public, but while still only 39 years old he has notched a few political successes in his eight years by Macron’s side, honing skills that will be much needed in the weeks ahead. As armed forces minister, Lecornu managed to overcome divisions in a highly fractured parliament and get more than 400 lawmakers to pass his seven-year military programming budget in 2023, which saw increased spending for the military. “Some say it’s easy to negotiate budget increases,” said a close ally of the president. “He will tell you it wasn’t.” Unlike political grandees Bayrou and Barnier, Lecornu has spent the last years in the political trenches at the National Assembly and in local politics. “He knows how mercurial the National Assembly is, he’ll be maneuvering, he’ll be immersed in the debate,” said the same ally. “He knows how to negotiate.” Less well known, but equally important in these politically volatile times, Lecornu was instrumental in helping Macron quell the Yellow Vest protests. As minister for local territories he helped organize a debate between the French president and local representatives in his Normandy constituency. This first successful meeting with the French public led to others, and to a tour of France that helped bring the protests to an end. OFF ON THE WRONG FOOT The true test of Lecornu’s worth still lies ahead and depends on whether he can strike a deal with the Socialists without alienating the conservatives, who look set to continue in government. The risk for Lecornu is he’ll get caught in a bidding war he can’t win: The more he needs a deal, the more concessions opposition parties will demand. There’s disappointment among the Socialists from the outset. The moderate left wanted to see a prime minister appointed from their ranks, and instead will have to deal with one of Macron’s closest allies. As a former conservative, he has “good relations with Les Républicains party” and represents “continuity” with the president’s past governments, Emmanuel Macron said. | Nicolas Economou/Getty Images This week, Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure warned that no Socialist would join Lecornu’s government and “if nothing changes” they would not shy from toppling the government. If the moderate left remains outside the government, they will want to extract a high price for their tacit support. And on budget talks, there’s a massive gap to bridge. The Socialists want to suspend Macron’s flagship reform of pensions, a red line for the president. They also want a tax on France’s ultra-rich individuals, the so-called Zucman tax, which has been slammed by Macron’s centrists as a futile proposal that will just encourage France’s wealthiest to move abroad. Macron, however, has signaled some room for maneuver on the scale of the budget cuts needed. Bayrou’s plans to squeeze the 2026 French budget by €43.8 billion may well be shelved. The president “prefers structural reform to lopping €3 billion off the budget,” said the ally quoted above. There might be a way. “If he refuses the Zucman tax but increases the minimum wage, we’ll take a look,” said a Socialist official. Ultimately, Lecornu’s secret weapon could turn against him. The man who has Macron’s full confidence may have to extract uncomfortable concessions from his own boss — if he wants to survive as prime minister.

PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron’s escape route out of the political and economic crisis gripping France now looks almost impossibly narrow. On Monday, his key ally Prime Minister François Bayrou was toppled in a bloodbath of a no-confidence vote, with 364 lawmakers voting to oust him and only 194 coming out in support. Macron’s office promptly said he would move in “the next few days” to appoint the country’s fifth prime minister in less than two years, but there are grave doubts that the new appointee will prove any more successful than Bayrou in forcing through the tens of billions of euros of budget cuts needed to save the EU’s second-biggest economy from a ballooning debt crisis. Macron is now squarely in the line of public fire, ahead of threats of a national shutdown on Sept. 10 and major protests planned by trade unions on Sept. 18. The president’s popularity has dropped to an all-time low, with polls showing he is more unpopular today than at the peak of the Yellow Vest protests in 2018 and 2019, one of the gravest crises of his tenure. Ever confident in his ability to wriggle, Houdini-like, out of the worst of tangles, Macron is still holding out for a deal with the moderate left, the centrists and the conservative Les Républicains party to form a minority government that can finally reach an agreement over the budget. But Macron is almost certainly clutching at straws in a country that looks increasingly ungovernable. The scale of Bayrou’s defeat in parliament on Monday and the signals emerging from lawmakers already suggest his efforts are doomed from the outset. MACRON TRIES TO HOLD THE CENTER During a day of high drama in parliament, opposition parties rounded on Macron as the protagonist responsible for the stalemate engulfing France. “There is only one person responsible for the crisis, for the fiasco and instability, it’s the president of the Republic,” said Boris Vallaud, the Socialist Party’s parliamentary leader. Communist parliamentary leader Stéphane Peu likened the crisis to “Saving Private Ryan” with Bayrou being “the fourth prime minister to fall to save President Macron.” After the vote, many called for Macron to step down. “The president doesn’t want to change his policies? Well, we’ll have to change president,” said Mathilde Panot, parliamentary head of the far-left France Unbowed party. Macron faces an intense challenge in keeping the center together, while the far-right National Rally — the party that tops the polls — and the far left are on an anti-establishment blitz, threatening to bring down any future administrations that slash public spending. Consolidating the middle ground is difficult because the center-left Socialists and center-right Les Républicains disagree fundamentally on economic policy aims, despite growing fears that France’s inability to put its books in order could ultimately put a strain on the EU’s finances. ALL EYES ON THE SOCIALISTS In his valedictory speech before the National Assembly, Bayrou warned against complacency about the depths of France’s financial mess, saying the nation suffers from a “life-threatening” level of debt. “You have the power to overthrow the government” but not “to erase reality,” he told lawmakers. In his valedictory speech before the National Assembly, François Bayrou warned against complacency about the depths of France’s financial mess, saying the nation suffers from a “life-threatening” level of debt. | Yoan Valat/EPA But very quickly, opposition leaders were already looking to the post-Bayrou scenarios. Sensing an opportunity for the left, the Socialist Vallaud called on the liberal President Macron to “do his duty” and appoint a prime minister from their ranks. “We are ready, come and get us,” he said. He touted “another path” for France that would include what he described as a fairer tax policy, and said the Socialists would row back on Bayrou’s proposed cancellation of two bank holidays. By Monday evening, all sorts of scenarios involving the Socialist Party were being floated. These included a grand coalition running from the conservatives to the Socialists (which is the least likely) and a non-aggression pact that would see the Socialists refraining from toppling a center-right government, led by a left-leaning centrist, in exchange for budget concessions. Also being discussed is a similar arrangement with Les Républicains, which would see the latter refrain from toppling a government from the left in return for concessions on the budget. THE LEFT-RIGHT TIGHTROPE Theoretically, a government backed by both the Socialists and Les Républicains would have wider support in parliament than Bayrou’s outgoing center-right government. But why would the Socialists and Les Républicains — generally at daggers drawn — actually work together? There is a glimmer of a chance that they might see it makes sense to compromise now to keep their parliamentary seats rather than push France into more chaos and risk losing them in a snap election. In reality, though, the risks of failure are high. Laurent Wauquiez, Les Républicains’ parliamentary leader, warned on Monday his party would not support a Socialist government that is too deeply inspired by other more radical left-wing parties with which they stood in last year’s election, as part of a pan-leftist grouping called the New Popular Front. “We would never accept the nefarious political platform of the New Popular Front,” said Wauquiez. “And that obviously applies to any Socialist government that carries the ideas of the New Popular Front.” Additionally, with local elections set for March 2026, no opposition parties will really want to ally themselves with a president surround by an aura of fin de règne. And even if the party top brass in the center parties agreed to cooperate on a budget, there is no guarantee the rank and file lawmakers would follow. Take the Bayrou vote as an example. On Monday, Les Républicains, were conspicuously divided on the no-confidence vote, with 27 voting to support Bayrou and 13 against, despite calls from Les Républicains’ head and Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau to back the government. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen also cast doubt on Macron’s ability to hold the center, and to get any left-right alliance to agree on a budget. The only option, as she saw it, was to call an election. “Dissolving parliament will not be option, but an obligation,” she said. But that election would also probably do little to heal the divisions at the heart of the crippling national impasse.

PARIS — French lawmakers toppled Prime Minister François Bayrou’s minority government on Monday evening, thrusting the country deeper into a political crisis that will force President Emmanuel Macron to name a fifth premier in less than two years.   Macron’s office hasn’t said whether he will speak tonight. But Macron has limited options to steer France out of this crisis. He is reportedly leaning toward appointing another prime minister — the fifth since January 2024 — but a new premier would face the same intractable parliament. So too would a technical government made up of civil servants.   Another snap election looks unappetizing, though, as it could easily deliver another hung parliament.   In an extreme scenario, Macron could even resign, but that’s highly unlikely given his past statements.

PARIS — French far-right leader Marine Le Pen will face an appeal trial from Jan. 13 to Feb. 12 next year that will determine whether she will be able to run in the 2027 presidential election. Le Pen was found guilty in March of embezzling European Parliament funds and sentenced to an immediate five-year ban from running for public office, in a decision that seemingly dealt a fatal blow to her presidential ambitions. Le Pen denied all the charges and immediately appealed the ruling. Following widespread outrage at the verdict from various corners of the right, including U.S. President Donald Trump, the court of appeal promised a decision by summer of 2026. It usually takes two to three months for the court to reach a decision after the trial ends. The far-right leader slammed the trial as politically motivated and the guilty verdict as antidemocratic. Le Pen’s supporters hope the court will either overturn her immediate election ban so she can run in the presidential election or commute the sentence into a shorter one with the same effect. Le Pen and 24 other codefendants were accused of illicitly siphoning off European Parliament funds to pay for National Rally employees who seldom or never attended to their parliamentary activities in Brussels or Strasbourg. The court estimated the accused had embezzled more than €4 million over 12 years.  The harshest punishment was reserved for Le Pen, as she was convicted of criminal activity both as a former MEP and as the then-president of her party.  While her protégé, National Rally President Jordan Bardella, is theoretically ready to step up as an alternative presidential candidate, Le Pen, currently lawmaker in the French Assemblée Nationale, has signaled her intention to use all possible judicial means at her disposal to run, even if President Emmanuel Macron calls new parliamentary elections before her appeal trial.

PARIS — François Bayrou is set to be booted out as France’s prime minister on Monday, but that doesn’t necessarily spell the end of the long political road of the canny, three-time presidential candidate. Does the 74-year-old from the Pyrenees have one more shot at the Elysée Palace in him? Is he the centrist unifier who could stop the far-right National Rally from coming to power in 2027 and reshaping Europe’s political landscape under Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella? When asked by reporters, he tends to observe knowingly: “That’s not how the game is played.” Bayrou is undaunted by his current poor showing in the polls. As he sees it, the pieces will only start to click in the winter of late 2026. “The criterion,” he believes, “is that in their kitchen, around family meals, at the earliest at Christmas, in February or in March, there are people who say: This one can do it.” For now, Bayrou seems unlikely to be that “one.” He is set to lose a vote of no confidence next week after failing to push through a raft of severe budget cuts he says are vital to stop France, the EU’s second-largest economy, from pitching into a Greek-style debt crisis. Bayrou’s logic is that he will ultimately be vindicated as a principled prophet on the dangers of overspending. Should his dire warnings prove prescient, every family forced to scrimp on presents for their children in 2026 or on festive staples like champagne and oysters next Christmas will see Bayrou as the guru who “told you so.” Even so, he has a lot of ground to claw back in terms of popularity. The big presidential showdown in the spring of 2027 may still be far off, but other former centrist prime ministers, namely Édouard Philippe and Gabriel Attal, currently look better placed for the race. Bayrou’s standing has not been helped by an ugly scandal this year featuring revelations that his daughter — unbeknown to him — was one of multiple children abused at a Catholic school near the city of Pau, his southwestern bastion in the Pyrenees. PYRENEAN POLITICS Bayrou, a former mayor of Pau, is proud of his regional heritage and rural origins. His father, a farmer, was crushed to death by a hay wagon. But his béarnais charm conceals the fact that Bayrou is a veteran political operator — and a strong proponent of a classical education — who has survived for decades through his talent for gauging France’s political fickle political winds. A former teacher, Bayrou draws inspiration from (and wrote a book about) Henri IV, the famously pragmatic king and fellow Pau native who converted from the Protestant faith to Catholicism to save France from the bloodshed of the wars of religion. François Bayrou, a former mayor of Pau, is proud of his regional heritage and rural origins. | Pool photo by Thibaud Moritz via EPA Bayrou was unafraid to throw his support behind the Socialist François Hollande and burn bridges with center-right President Nicolas Sarkozy before the 2012 presidential election, which Sarkozy lost. That winning bet helped him become the face of French centrism in the months that followed. Bayrou was also one of the earliest supporters of a virtually unknown young economy minister named Emmanuel Macron, who spurned the Socialist Party in 2016 to create his own centrist movement in a long-shot bid for the presidency. He has even been known to boast that Macron wouldn’t have won the presidency without his support.   Having failed to win the top job in 2002, 2007 and 2012, Bayrou surely has only one chance left. His strategy now is to depart his PM role showing he was prepared to go down fighting on a point of principle — the need to balance the books being one that he has stressed for years. Faced with the same intractably divided parliament that doomed his predecessor, Michel Barnier, as he tries to pass his budget reforms, Bayrou is confronting his fate rather than having it imposed upon him. Or, in the words of one ministerial adviser overheard moments after Bayrou announced his plans: “It’s better to die by suicide than suffer in agony.”  Bayrou will be hoping his self-immolation can set the stage for a phoenix-like resurrection.   All it would take is a dash of economic calamity.  MR. ANTI-DEBT  Since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958, only Jacques Chirac has succeeded in using the French premiership as a springboard to the presidency. Prime ministers tend to leave office worse off than they started, wrung dry of political capital by powerful presidents who lean on them to do the dirty work of legislating.   But Bayrou’s career-long warnings about profligate public spending could come to fruition. “He wants to be Mr. Anti-Debt,” said one high-ranking ally of the president who was granted anonymity to candidly discuss the current state of French politics.  It’s still a sheer climb. Bayrou is historically unpopular, with one poll late last month showing just 19 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion of him. He’ll need to contend with criticism that he was all talk and failed to address issues relating to French debt while holding positions of authority. Europe’s increasing disdain for career politicians and its preference for upstart populists won’t help either. Surveys show that Le Pen’s far-right National Rally, already the single largest opposition party in France’s more powerful lower house of parliament, is the most popular political movement in the country.   Bayrou’s machinations aren’t a secret within the gilded walls of the Elysée. Some of Macron’s allies question whether the prime minister is exaggerating the threat posed by France’s sky-high budget deficit for political reasons.  While there’s wide agreement that France needs to get its books in order, not everyone is concerned that Paris will need to turn to the International Monetary Fund or the European Central Bank for a bailout in the short term. ECB chief Christine Lagarde said in an interview Monday that the situation is worrying but not yet dire.  Macron himself reportedly tried to downplay the crisis at a meeting with his ministers last week, and believes the government could survive if it found a way to bring the center-left Socialists back into the fold, despite their anger with Bayrou over retirement reforms. Markets are jittery and borrowing costs are rising, but not drastically. Whether the economy runs into a real storm will determine whether Bayrou sees out his career at the center of power in Paris, or back home in Pau. Paul de Villepin contributed reporting.   

PARIS — French politics are so paralyzed that the resignation of President Emmanuel Macron — an idea once only whispered in the corridors of power — is now being openly debated. But while Macron’s departure would be an earthquake on the European diplomatic stage, there’s increasing doubt it would fix the gridlock stalling the Fifth Republic. France’s problems appear to be deeper. Macron is already scouting around for his fifth prime minister in less than two years, in the expectation that François Bayrou will be ousted on Monday over his unpopular measures to slash the country’s eye-watering budget deficit. But would a new prime ministerial nominee from Macron be able to force through the billions of euros in budget tightening that the country needs to avoid a debt crisis? And would a new snap election create a workable majority? Neither outcome seems likely. And even if Macron were to resign, his successor would almost certainly face the same obstacles. For nearly 70 years, the institutions of the French Fifth Republic have held, no matter how often people took to the streets or how long they went on strike. Governments came and went as presidents, for the most part, lasted until the end of their terms, albeit usually less popular than when they began. The system endured. But today the legislature is deadlocked, budget talks are flatlining, and murmurs of social unrest are growing louder. Financial markets are jumpy, and Bayrou himself is warning that Paris faces a Greek-style scenario unless it reins in spending. Against that backdrop, far-right National Rally President Jordan Bardella and far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose parties together account for a third of seats in the National Assembly, are openly calling for the president to go. The broader conversation about his departure is no longer outlandish and now includes reputable political commentators and some figures from the center right. “We’re hearing this even from voices close to the Macron camp,” said Mathieu Gallard, a pollster at Ipsos France. “The discomfort is real.” HANGING IN THERE Macron is still seen as extremely unlikely to throw in the towel, not least because his premature exit — a presidential election isn’t due until 2027 — would do nothing to resolve the mess. Surveys show a new legislative election in the coming weeks would most likely yield another hung parliament with a few more seats for Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally. Emmanuel Macron is already scouting around for his fifth prime minister in less than two years, in the expectation that François Bayrou will be ousted on Monday over his unpopular measures to slash the country’s eye-watering budget deficit. | Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA “Politicians wrongly believe the myth that the French choose a leader, and then hand him a working parliamentary majority to act,” said French constitutional expert Benjamin Morel. That idea, Morel said, was a another casualty of Macron’s 2017 victory as a liberal disruptor who laid waste to France’s bipartisan tradition. The political fault lines that emerged from the rubble have, in a cruel twist of fate, come back to haunt him. “I haven’t seen this much uncertainty since I was a student in 1968,” said Eric Chaney, former chief economist of the AXA insurance firm, referring to May 1968 protests that brought France to a standstill and led to deep social and political changes. “Suddenly, you don’t know what is happening to your own economy, your own government,” Chaney said. NEW LEADER, SAME PROBLEMS Known to be headstrong, Macron has often waved off the possibility of an early departure. The 47-year-old centrist has been a dominant and increasingly polarizing force in French politics for the past eight years, while his promises to forge the country into “the start-up nation” haven’t quite been fulfilled. The president knows full well there is scant sign that French politicians are prepared to put aside their divisions and resolve the budget malaise for the good of the nation. Indeed, the mood in France is downright uncooperative, said Gaspard Gantzer, a former adviser to Socialist French President François Hollande. “We’ll carry on deepening the deficit, nothing will happen and the situation will just get worse,” he said. But French opposition parties would be wrong to think they can cycle through new prime ministers, fresh elections and even an early presidential election without swallowing the bitter medicine that Macron’s successive governments have tried to administer, Chaney said. “If people start thinking it’s not so bad, we can live with deficits, we are heading toward a full-blown crisis,” he said. “Germany will start thinking that France is a serious problem and the ECB [European Central Bank] will not be able to help the French government manage its debt.” Germany, Chaney says, could set conditions on any help the ECB gives France. But even if Berlin were able to strong-arm the French political establishment, would France follow suit? If the Yellow Vest protests of 2018 and 2019, the pensions protests of 2023 and the current calls for a national shutdown are anything to go by, an increasingly skeptical and restive public has little appetite for sacrifices and austerity. As for getting rid of Macron, France is a country steeped in regicidal revolutionary history and understands both the attractions and pitfalls of giving the boss the chop. It’s easy to call for his head — but you’ve got to be ready for the chaos that comes next.

Mujtaba Rahman is the head of Eurasia Group’s Europe practice. He tweets at @Mij_Europe. France’s 2027 presidential race is wide open. The country’s last five or six elections all had surprises and plot twists, but each time the contest’s basic structure was still foreseeable two years ahead of time. That isn’t the case now. There are several reasons for this: A generalized mood of discontent with politics; the scrambling of the old left-right divide; the weakness of the incumbent president, who can neither run again nor readily influence the choice of his successor; as well as the global, economic and political uncertainties generated by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. Moreover, the choice of candidates is particularly uncertain this time around, as President Emmanuel Macron’s center is hugely fragmented. Until last month, the competition to succeed Macron was limited to two of his former prime ministers: the leader of the center-right Horizons party, Edouard Philippe, and the leader of Macron’s Renaissance party, Gabriel Attal. But now, both have fallen out with the president and are attempting to appeal to his socially progressive, pro-European, pro-business base, while simultaneously distancing themselves from an unpopular president with a patchy record. Polls indicate that Philippe is a clear early leader in this battle for the center, with 21 to 24 percent support in the first round of the election, while Attal’s polling is around 14 to 15 percent. All the while, hard-line Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau’s bid threatens to turn the “central civil war” into a three-way fight. As head of the much weakened ex-Gaullist center-right party Republicans, Retailleau seems certain to become his party’s candidate, which sets up three of the four party leaders in the governing alliance as rivals to be Macron’s successor — an inherently explosive situation. The French president has lost almost all domestic influence since his unsuccessful snap elections last year, and he has little leverage to influence this crucial race within a race. Moreover, both Philippe and Retailleau are unlikely to campaign to “save Macronism” but rather to bury it and restore something closer to the socially conservative, economically liberal and less enthusiastically European center right of former presidents Jacques Chirac or Nicolas Sarkozy. On the left, the stage is even more crowded. The perennial hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon is showing at 13 to 15 percent in early first-round polling despite his status as the most disliked man in French politics, with negatives of over 70 percent. As always, his undeclared but likely presence in the race will make it difficult for a broad-left candidate to emerge. The strongest early contender on the moderate, pro-European left is Raphaël Glucksmann. | Mohammed Badra/EPA Still, the strongest early contender on the moderate, pro-European left is Raphaël Glucksmann — a member of the European Parliament who performed surprisingly well in the 2024 European elections and is currently polling at 10 to 11 percent. Both Glucksmann and Mélenchon have ruled out participating in any pan-left primary contest. Meanwhile, the once powerful center-left Socialist Party remains split between its radical and reformist, pro-European wings. Narrowly retaining his seat for a fourth time, the party’s left-leaning First Secretary Olivier Faure hopes to be its presidential candidate for 2027. However, at least two rising figures from the party’s moderate wing — Carole Dega, president of the southwest Occitanie region, and Karim Boumrane, mayor of Saint-Ouen in the Paris suburbs — plan to oppose him. So, overall, it looks like there will probably be up to eight left-wing candidates in the presidential race by the end of next year. For the far right, being in pole position doesn’t necessarily translate to victory either, though. Polling numbers remain strong for the National Rally party despite the March court verdict banning opposition leader Marine Le Pen from seeking office for five years. All recent surveys show Le Pen and her deputy, Jordan Bardella, boasting over 30 percent of first-round support. And if confirmed in April 2027, either of them would be in pole position to win the runoff the following month — but that’s still no guarantee. Both Le Pen and Bardella have very high negatives — in the range of 47 to 49 percent — which would make it exceedingly hard for them to assemble the 50 percent of the vote needed to prevail. Relations between the two have also deteriorated since the court ruling. Le Pen, who still regards herself as the National Rally’s candidate until next year’s appeal, has been angered by suggestions — from both the Bardella camp and the media — that he’s now the true presidential frontrunner, pointing out his youth and lack of experience on several occasions. So far, however, these tensions haven’t reduced their joint popularity in the polls. Of course, this far out from the 2027 race, opinion polls for the second round are rare; however, several recent Ifop and Odoxa surveys suggest that Philippe would beat both Le Pen and Bardella, while they might defeat Retailleau or Attal. The outcome will, therefore, depend on who snatches second place in the first round — something that might be decided by a slim margin of just a few thousand votes if the center and left-wing candidates remain neck-and-neck to the finish line. Simply put, Macron has a succession problem — and there’s not much time to solve it.