The French president has seen four prime ministers come and go in three years. The rancorous stasis of his second term is a gift to Marine Le Pen
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n the lead-up to the vote that ejected him from office this week after a mere nine months, the centre-right French prime minister, François Bayrou, appeared stoically reconciled to his fate. “There are worse disasters in life than the fall of a government,” Mr Bayrou observed on national radio, implicitly acknowledging his failure to win backing for a swingeing austerity strategy. On Monday, MPs duly used a debate called by the prime minister himself to oust him.
And so another one bites the dust. The entrance to Matignon, France’s baroque prime ministerial residence, has become a revolving door during Emmanuel Macron’s benighted second term. Lacking a majority in a divided and deadlocked parliament, the president has gone through four premiers in a little over three years. Following the departure of the latest, he announced his intention to appoint a fifth within days, rather than countenance a new election with Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National ahead in the polls.
Continuing instability and paralysis in the political mainstream will only enhance the far right’s prospects in presidential elections in 2027. But without a fundamental strategic shift in the Élysée, there is no reason to believe that Mr Bayrou’s successor will fare any better, or last any longer, than he did.
