France In Crisis: Macron Confronts Mounting Calls For Resignation Or Dissolution

France's President Emmanuel Macron. Photo Credit: Влада на Република Северна Македонија, Wikimedia Commons

 October 7, 2025  

By EurActiv

By Laurent Geslin

(EurActiv) — The resignation of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, one of Emmanuel Macron’s few remaining loyalists, has left the president increasingly isolated in what many in Paris call a “permanent state of instability.”

The French president now faces three options: resigning, dissolving the National Assembly, or appointing a prime minister from outside his own camp.

An unlikely resignation

Far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon accused Macron on Monday of being “the source of the chaos,” demanding his immediate resignation, and urged parliament to consider a motion of impeachment filed in September by 104 MPs from his movement, the Communists, and the Greens.

The motion, however, has virtually no chance of success as it would require two-thirds support in both chambers (385 MPs and 232 senators), and again in a joint session of parliament.

Calls for Macron’s resignation have also come from some on the right, including David Lisnard, vice-president of the centre-right Les Républicains (LR), who said the president was “the primary person responsible” for France’s current turmoil.

Macron, for his part, has repeatedly ruled out stepping down.

Dissolution on the horizon

The far-right National Rally (RN) is again calling for the dissolution of parliament and fresh elections. Its leader, Marine Le Pen, insisted after Lecornu’s resignation that the “only wise decision” is to “return to the ballot box.”

Former centre-right leader Éric Ciotti, who aligned with Le Pen in the 2024 elections, has urgedconservatives to form a “union of the right and patriots,” an idea also backed by MEP Marion Maréchal, who told Euractiv she favoured a Meloni-style “national alliance.”

In contrast, the left-wing parties appear, for the time being, unwilling to revive the New Popular Front (NFP), hastily formed after the last dissolution in 2024, which had successfully contained the far-right surge.

MEP Raphaël Glucksmann and several Socialist leaders have ruled out any alliance with Mélenchon’s France Unbowed (LFI), though the Greens issued a call for “a broad alliance” on Monday.

A new prime minister?

Rather than dissolving parliament again, Macron could seek to appoint a prime minister from outside his ranks, an idea now gaining traction on parts of the left.

“We are ready to assume responsibility for the country,” said Socialist MP Philippe Brun.

Within Macron’s centrist Renaissance party, some figures also appear open to the idea: Ecological Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher warned that “those who think we can govern while ignoring the left are mistaken.”

National Assembly President Yaël Braun-Pivet stated that “the path of dialogue is still possible,” calling for a “pact of stability and responsibility,” though without specifying which parties might take part.

Whatever path Macron chooses, time is running short. France has been governed by a caretaker cabinet for a month, and must pass a 2026 budget before 1 January.