Macron Charts His Own Course
France is facing a governmental crisis, at least according to the parties in Parliament that oppose the current president, Emmanuel Macron. For his part, Macron rejects the candidate put forward by the left-wing bloc, 37-year-old Lucie Castets. He expects nothing good from her for the policies being implemented by the current government, led by his party colleague, 35-year-old Gabriel Attal. The tough negotiations over the candidacy for Prime Minister and the formation of a government have been ongoing for eight weeks, amid the fact that none of the three parliamentary coalitions has a majority. This is happening for the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic. The differences between the three largest parliamentary blocs are so significant that they practically rule out a coalition between two of them against the third. Macron still has a carte blanche for this kind of behaviour since he cannot be removed from office before May 2025. However, he himself cannot dissolve the National Assembly before July of the same year. What does he want? It seems he is insisting on the appointment of a neutral technocrat who will not interfere too much with his strong domestic and foreign policies. And to achieve this, Macron is attacking the unity of the largest parliamentary bloc.
Emmanuel Macron is ignoring the wishes of the leaders of the largest parliamentary bloc, the New Popular Front (NFP), which won 182 seats in the election. The left-wing bloc is followed by Macron’s centrist alliance, Ensemble, which had 159 seats, and the far-right National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen, which had 139 seats. The National Assembly has a total of 577 seats, meaning that outside the three mega-blocs, there are 97 deputies, most of whom belong to small electoral groups, including 8 deputies who declared themselves independent.
Fragile Balance
Even theoretically, the NFP cannot attract enough external deputies to secure a majority of 289 seats. The maximum they could achieve is 279 seats, and even that is unrealistic, as at least half of the 97 unaffiliated deputies have significant political differences with the New Popular Front. Subsequent events have confirmed all these considerations: as of 27 August, France24 reported that the NFP has slightly more than 190 members, Ensemble more than 160 seats, and RN more than 140 seats. This is all that the leading blocs have managed to recruit in eight weeks. In fact, this can be considered the maximum possible number of deputies they can attract. And what about the approximately 85 deputies remaining in the "swamp"? They really do not have any decisive influence.
Macron, for understandable reasons, does not want to work with an opposition government. And not only because the stability of such a government is questionable. The presence of the opposition in the government weakens the French president’s ability to implement pro-European policies and support Ukraine in its resistance to Russian aggression. Moreover, Macron, who was re-elected for a second term in 2022, has immunity from removal during the first three years of his term. Thus, he is protected from removal until 14 May 2025. Macron has the right to dissolve the National Assembly again. However, he cannot do this before 7 July 2025, the first year after the 2024 parliamentary elections.
If Macron agreed to be a prime minister from the opposition, such a situation would mean so-called "cohabitation". Currently, the country is led by the government of Gabriel Attal, who is expected to remain in office until the appointment of a new prime minister.
Since the New Popular Front does not have enough votes to form an absolute majority and all three leading electoral blocs have very strong political differences, Macron has the opportunity to twist the leftists' arms. So, might he try to engage the far-right RN of Marine Le Pen? But in forming the National Assembly apparatus, the Ensemble coalition did everything to ensure that the RN did not gain any seats there. The New Popular Front secured the majority of the seats in the National Assembly apparatus—12 out of the total 22. The 22 seats in the Bureau of the National Assembly include the institution's president, Yaël Braun-Pivet (from the Renaissance party, whose honorary president is Emmanuel Macron), 6 vice-presidents, 3 quaestors, and 12 secretaries.
Now, Emmanuel Macron is actively conducting separate negotiations with certain members of the New Popular Front who are less radical than Jean-Luc Mélenchon's La France Insoumise (LFI). Meanwhile, Mélenchon is threatening Macron with impeachment. But, as already noted, Macron has immunity until May 2025. So, might there be "cohabitation"?
Cohabitation is Nothing New—This is the Fourth Time
The so-called "cohabitation" already occurred in France in 1986–1988, 1993–1995, and 1997–2002. During these periods, the president had to work with a majority in the National Assembly that was in opposition to him and had to choose a prime minister in such a way that the Assembly's deputies could not dismiss the government. Currently, we are witnessing the formation of "cohabitation" for the fourth time.
The first instance of cohabitation occurred after the 1986 parliamentary elections when Socialist François Mitterrand appointed Jacques Chirac, the leader of the opposition party, Rally for the Republic (RPR), as Prime Minister. At that time, RPR was the largest party in the majority coalition. Just a few days passed between the parliamentary elections in March 1986 and Chirac's appointment.
Chirac held the position for only two years, from 20 March 1986 to 10 May 1988. He resigned after losing the 1988 presidential election to Mitterrand, although he was later elected president in 1995. After Mitterrand's re-election in 1988, there were parliamentary elections, following which cohabitation ended, as Mitterrand appointed a member of his own party, Michel Rocard, as Prime Minister.
The Mitterrand-Chirac cohabitation was marked by Chirac's liberal reforms, against which Mitterrand opposed.
The second cohabitation also involved Mitterrand, who had a seven-year term. In 1993, following the parliamentary elections, he was forced to appoint Édouard Balladur, the finance minister in Jacques Chirac's government from 1986–1988, as Prime Minister. This decision was also announced just days after the parliamentary elections.
Balladur represented the coalition of the opposition parties to Mitterrand, the RPR and the Union for French Democracy (UDF), which held 80% of the seats in the National Assembly. However, Balladur did not remain in office for long—until 1995. He continued Chirac's policy of liberalisation and privatisation, albeit more cautiously than his ex-chief.
In the 1995 presidential election, Balladur attempted to challenge his former boss. However, Jacques Chirac won the election in 1995 and, as president, took the opportunity to replace the Prime Minister.
France encountered the phenomenon of cohabitation for the third time in 1997, when President Chirac made a mistake, according to many scholars. Specifically, Jacques Chirac decided to dissolve Parliament a year before the next scheduled parliamentary elections. Incidentally, does this decision not remind us of Emmanuel Macron's actions in June 2024?
In 1997, the parliamentary elections in France ended with a victory for the Socialists, who were able to form a coalition around them. As a result, the Socialist Lionel Jospin was appointed Prime Minister and held the position for five years until the next parliamentary elections. He was also appointed to this position by President Chirac very quickly—the day after the election results were announced.
The fourth instance of cohabitation is now forming before our eyes, but it has been eight weeks since the announcement of the results of the elections to the National Assembly of France. So the situation is entirely different. This has never happened in the history of the Fifth Republic. In previous cases, the opposition electoral bloc had an absolute majority in the National Assembly following the elections. Therefore, in previous instances, the president had no choice but to appoint a prime minister whose candidacy was effectively proposed by the leaders of the dominant parliamentary bloc, which was in opposition to the president.
As a result, a fierce political "ping-pong" is now underway.
Photo: President Emmanuel Macron (right) and Ireland Prime Minister Simon Harris on 27 August in Paris discussing measures regarding the crisis in the Middle East and coordinating actions at the autumn meetings of the EU Council. Source: X (formerly Twitter) Simon Harris
What Macron is Doing Meanwhile
Emmanuel Macron is limited by a deadline of 1 October. This is the last day the government has to present the draft budget for 2025 to Parliament. Of course, if the government does not have support in the National Assembly, this legislative act will not pass.
Macron is currently calling on socialists, environmentalists, and communists in the left-wing NFP alliance to "cooperate with other political forces."
By rejecting the candidacy of Lucie Castets, Macron argues that a left-wing government would be a "threat to institutional stability" as it would be immediately rejected by a vote of no confidence in Parliament. Because Macron's Ensemble party and Marine Le Pen's National Rally could vote 298 votes against the government in a no-confidence motion.
Amidst the government crisis, Emmanuel Macron continues to be highly politically active.
On 27 August, President Emmanuel Macron hosted Ireland Prime Minister Simon Harris in Paris. They discussed coordinating actions at the autumn meetings of the EU Council, as well as the crisis in the Middle East. The next day, Macron opened the Paralympic Games in Paris.
Photo: United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited President Emmanuel Macron (right) in Paris for talks about strengthening relations between the UK and France. Illegal immigration, the war in Ukraine, and the Middle East crisis were topics of discussion. Source: X (formerly Twitter) Keir Starmer
On 29 August, Macron had even two high-level meetings in one day. In the morning, United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with Macron in Paris. According to Starmer's reports, they discussed the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, "bilateral issues in terms of trade, defence, and security, as well as the broader reset I want for our relations not just with France, but with the EU in general." This is effectively one of the steps in Starmer's effort to reset the UK's relations with the EU. This was Starmer's second such meeting in the past week following his talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin.
On the same day, Macron visited Belgrade (Serbia), where he was greeted with a cannon salute. There, Emmanuel Macron and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić signed an agreement that the French president called "historic." This agreement involves the purchase of nine single-seat and three twin-seat Rafale jets for €2.7 billion, to be delivered in 2028-29 to replace the Russian MiG-29s, which are due to be decommissioned in four years.
Photo: Emmanuel Macron (left) and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić signed an agreement that opens the way for Belgrade to acquire modern European-made weapons. Source: X (formerly Twitter) Emmanuel Macron
This is a strategically significant move aimed at moving Belgrade away from overly close ties with Moscow and Beijing. Currently, Serbia remains a point of tension in central Western Europe. Closer ties with Paris and Berlin also have an economic dimension: Serbia has a strong public movement against the development of lithium deposits. It is likely that this movement is externally inspired and poses an obstacle to a project that is critically important both for the EU and Aleksandar Vučić.
On 30 August, Vučić met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Prague on the sidelines of the GLOBSEC security conference. Issues of Serbia's Euro-integration and the development of lithium deposits were also discussed there. Thus, in this case, Macron is playing the role of a key negotiator—not only on behalf of France but also on behalf of the Euro-Atlantic community.