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France’s crisis takes an unexpected turn as Macron’s allies defy him
President of France Emmanuel Macron prepares to deliver a speech during a state banquet at Guildhall on July 9, 2025 in London, England. President Emmanuel Macron and Mrs Brigitte Macron are in the U.K. for the first visit state visit made by France in 17 years. They stayed at Windsor Castle, hosted by King Charles III and Queen Camilla.
Leon Neal | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
The resignation of Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has shown that this latest French government crisis is different to the previous ones because, this time, key allies of the government had been instrumental in toppling it, rather than the opposition.
Since then, a wider trend has emerged of allies turning against French President Emmanuel Macron. This has accelerated this week with his own former prime ministers coming out one after the other to criticize the president for his handling of the political deadlock that has gripped the National Assembly.
The most notable criticism has come from Gabriel Attal, once Macron’s protégé, and the youngest ever prime minister when appointed in early in 2024.
He lost the job just a few months later after Macron decided to call a snap election in June 2024, blindsiding even some of his closest allies, including Attal, who since then has been gradually distancing himself from his mentor.
Now the leader of Macron’s centrist group in parliament, Attal said on television Monday evening that “like many French, I no longer understand the president’s decisions” adding that the president gives ” the impression of a form of relentlessness, of wanting to keep control.”
France’s Prime Minister Gabriel Attal gives a speech following the first results of the second round of France’s legislative election at Matignon in Paris on July 7, 2024.
Ludovic Marin | Afp | Getty Images
Then on Tuesday Morning, Edouard Philippe, Macron’s very first prime minister during three years of his first term in office, made a shock call for an early presidential election, talking about a “woeful political game” and “a political crisis that worries and dismays our fellow citizens.”
He continued, “we’re not going to let what we’ve been experiencing for the past six months drag on for another 18 months; that’s far too long.” In his view, this crisis, “is not just a chronicle and a dance of posturing and ambitions, this crisis is a crisis of the state.”
On Tuesday evening, it was the turn of Elisabeth Borne.
Prime minister between May 2022 and January 2024, she came out with what may be both the way to solve the current crisis and the undoing of Macron’s legacy: suggesting the possible suspension of the infamous pension reform.
Borne was in charge of the government during the tough times of the negotiations and protests around the controversial reform to raise the minimum pension age from 62 to 64 years old.
Despite being adopted a couple of years ago, the reform continues to be a lightening rod for French politics, with both the left and the far-right calling for its amendment, if not its repeal altogether.
The freezing of the reform could open a potential path for negotiations with the Socialist Party with the aim of avoiding a dissolution of parliament. But the undoing of the totemic reform of Macron’s mandates would be highly symbolic.
Maybe it will be the necessary sacrifice to avoid a deeper crisis and deleterious spiral for French politics and institutions, arguably a much worst legacy for Macron.
