From Triumph to Turbulence
In 2022, Emmanuel Macron achieved what no French president had managed since Jacques Chirac: re‑election. But the glow faded quickly. In the legislative elections that followed, his centrist coalition lost its majority, plunging France into its first hung parliament since 1993.
The era of near‑automatic presidential control over the National Assembly was over.
Governing Without a Majority
Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne’s government limped on as a minority. Key ministers lost their seats. Attempts to form a stable cross‑party majority failed.
To pass budgets and major reforms, Borne increasingly resorted to Article 49.3 of the Constitution, which allows the government to adopt a law without a vote unless a no‑confidence motion succeeds. By the end of 2022, she had used it ten times just to pass the 2023 budget measures.
No‑confidence motions piled up—17 by mid‑2023 alone. One came within nine votes of bringing the government down.
The Pension Explosion
The flashpoint was the 2023 pension reform, which raised the retirement age from 62 to 64. With parliament deadlocked, Borne again invoked Article 49.3. The result was a political earthquake: mass protests, violent clashes, and a cross‑party no‑confidence motion that failed by the slimmest margin since 1992.
Macron’s decision to force the reform through hardened the perception of a president out of step with a divided country and a fractious parliament.
Snap Elections—and Deeper Fragmentation
In June 2024, after his coalition was crushed in European Parliament elections, Macron took another gamble: he dissolved the National Assembly and called snap legislative elections.
The result was unprecedented. His centrist bloc slumped to its worst general‑election result since the 19th century, losing its position as largest group. A left‑wing alliance took a plurality, while Marine Le Pen’s far‑right RN became the largest single party.
France found itself with yet another hung parliament and no obvious governing majority.
A Carousel of Prime Ministers
The instability was mirrored at the top of government. Élisabeth Borne was replaced in early 2024 by Gabriel Attal, the youngest and first openly gay prime minister, leading a cabinet seen as the most right‑leaning of Macron’s tenure.
After further turmoil, Macron appointed conservative veteran Michel Barnier to lead a “unity government” in September 2024. But in December, when Barnier used Article 49.3 to pass the 2025 Social Security budget, the National Assembly finally rebelled: a no‑confidence motion passed, toppling his government—the first such fall since 1962.
Barnier resigned; Macron stayed on, blaming an alliance of “extreme left and extreme right.” A subsequent carousel of short‑lived prime ministers, including François Bayrou and Sébastien Lecornu, underscored the depth of the crisis.
A System Under Strain
Macron’s second term has become a stress test for the Fifth Republic. A powerful presidency, designed for clear parliamentary majorities, is now operating in an era of fragmentation, populist surges, and fragile coalitions.
The spectacle of repeated 49.3 decrees, mass protests, and collapsing cabinets leaves one question hanging in the air: is France witnessing the exhaustion of its current constitutional order, or just a turbulent transition to a more plural, conflict‑ridden democracy?