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Moreover, confidence in the institutions of the Fifth Republic has been declining, although for quite a while it has been regarded –and not merely by the Founding Fathers of 1958 –as a bulwark against instability. Even Emmanuel Macron’s first prime minister back in 2017, Edouard Philippe, recently told the broadcast network RTL that the country’s president should move up the date for elections, among other reasons because »the state is no longer functioning normally.«

The newspaper Le Point, considered to be liberal-conservative, headlined its October 9, 2025 edition with the disrespectful words, »Mr. President, step down with your head up.« France is not the only country to be shaken by such instability. That malady, which also undermines France’s international credibility, infects the European Union and the Eurozone as well. On the occasion of the French-German Council of Ministers, held on August 29, 2025, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told the LCI network in an interview: »We are following the political situation in France closely and sometimes we are worried.«

How did we get to this point?

It would be too easy to blame Emmanuel Macron for everything, even if he does bear a great deal of responsibility for the situation – so much so that 61% of the French population want him to resign. But the roots of these ills go deeper. Through his governing style, his tendency to let technocratic procedures prevail, often without consultations with either parliament and/or regional bodies, and his conduct more generally, President Macron has only managed to exacerbate those ills.

»A dialogue between the upper and lower echelons of society is nearly impossible.«
 

Shortly before Macron was elected to his first term, the sociologist Marchel Gauchet published a book entitled Comprendre le Malheur Français (Understanding France’s Troubles) arguing that France was poorly prepared for globalization. He added that the country’s elite harbored »social contempt« for the lower and middle strata which made a dialogue between the upper and lower echelons of society nearly impossible. Gauchet went on to note that the country suffers from the trauma of being an ex-great power that has failed to »renounce its previous status, the attributes of which it still possesses, such as nuclear weapons and a permanent seat of the UN Security Council.« In plain language, France has an identity problem that it has failed to solve even today.

Two other factors have played key roles. First, certain French institutions no longer suit the temper of the times. They date back the 1958 Constitution and the direct election of the president of France by universal suffrage, beginning in 1962. Those institutions are characterized by a »vertical« style of governing. In other words, everything begins with the president who can invoke »his« legitimacy at any time due to his direct election by the people. The most important appointments to offices of state, starting with that of the prime minister, depend on the president. The prime minister is expected to enact the president’s political program.
But for that arrangement to work, the prime minister chosen by the president must enjoy a majority in the parliament. In the days of bipolarly between »right« and »left,« that was usually a relatively simple matter. Before Macron, the political center never played a major role; indeed, it often evoked scornful smirks from the other parties. To be sure, mini-revolts took place repeatedly within the ranks of the major leftist and rightist parties. Both Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande had to endure them. But no president of France has ever been as weak as Macron or had such low popularity among voters as measured by polls. Only 14% of the French people are satisfied with him.  The whole system has gotten out of joint since Emmanuel Macron dissolved the National Assembly in June of 2024 and lost the subsequent election of July 6. In that election his party received far fewer votes than it had in 2022, an outcome that entailed a loss of 78 seats. Neither the president nor the prime minister enjoys a majority in the National Assembly.
By now, power has shifted from the executive to the legislature, which means, in practical terms, that just about every bill or the budget itself must be negotiated with each party. In that process all the parties are inclined to insist upon benefits for their own constituencies, so that the prime minister and the members of his cabinet must make concessions that fly in the face of their own political beliefs.

The »extreme center« has failed

The big problem here consists in the fact that at this time no party is strong enough to act as the government’s interlocutor and/or as a mediator between the government and other parties. The partisan landscapes is totally fractured. Never before in the history of the Fifth Republic have eleven different parties been represented in parliament. The Rassemblement National, together with its allies, is the only one that can count on a really strong and coherent parliamentary delegation, with 143 deputies out of 577. True, this fragmentation is the result of the previous parliamentary elections, but it also can be traced back indirectly to Emmanuel Macron himself. Since the beginning of his political career, he has despised political parties. Rather than founding one of his own, he instead created a »movement.« In 2016 he even said of parties that they are comparable to nice sports clubs.

»Destruction of parties and fragmentation of the political forces in parliament.«

In addition, Macron puts little stock in the cleavage between right and left; rather, he has wanted and still wants to transcend it, appropriating good ideas from both camps. He and his movement were interested in creating a new center that would then replace—and even extinguish—all the traditional parties, which were supposedly useless. In his book published in 2018, entitled L’Extrême Centre ou le Poison Français (The Extreme Center or the French Poison), the historian Pierre Serna introduced the concept of the »extreme center« to describe this pragmatic political approach, one that has little use for ideology and seeks the »way of the golden mean« on every issue. As he portrays them, the advocates of this political orientation consider themselves »rational actors.« No matter how elections turn out or what the approval ratings look like, they imagine that they alone consciously and truly seek to embody the common good.

Those who advocate this line mostly come from the upper class of high-ranking officials, professors, or entrepreneurs who consider parties to be disruptive factors and would prefer to govern without them. In contrast to his predecessors, Emmanuel Macron has so far shown little interest in his own movement, Renaissance. François Hollande, Nicolas Sarkosy, Jacques Chirac, and François Mitterrand always kept abreast of the internal debates going on within their parties and tried to influence their course behind the scenes. But with the destruction of parties and fragmentation of political forces within parliament, France today has become (nearly) ungovernable.

What lies ahead?

It’s not always easy to issue political prognoses, but a few directional lines are emerging for France that to some extent may shake up the political landscape. The Rassemblement National, which now is being characterized not as a »right-wing extremist party« but instead as a »national party« by some segments of the media, will become more importance. Its rise has occurred because over the past few years – and especially since the dissolution of parliament in June of 2024 – it has managed to cultivate the public image of being a »real opposition« and as such has hammered out an alternative program, one based not only on its favorite issue of internal security but also on economic and social policies. At every opportunity it charges the other parties with being part of the system and, due to their long intervals in government, as being (co-)responsible for the current situation in the country. Never having been in power, the National Rally can plead political innocence.

It is worth taking a close look at several findings of a study commissioned by the newspaper Le Monde and the Jean Jaurès Foundation in October of 2025, entitled French Divisions (Fractures Françaises).  Over time the share of French respondents who consider the Rassemblement National to be capable of governing has increased. In 2025 47% held that opinion, while in 2024 »only« 42% did. Just 49% of the respondents thought that the party was a danger to democracy. Moreover, the National Rally long has enjoyed a base of support within the traditional conservative camp. Accordingly, 43% of the supporters of the conservative Republican Party advocate an alliance between it and the Rassemblement National. Thus, if things remain as they are, no one should rule out the possibility that the party might win either the upcoming parliamentary balloting or the presidential elections slated for April, 2027, with the case of Italy frequently cited as a precedent. 
To prevent that outcome, changes in the French political culture and practice need to happen in the immediate future. It is urgently necessary to establish a culture of consensus or coalition since the age of (absolute) majorities is over. To avoid the current chaotic scene, the parties should issue hints, either before the elections or shortly thereafter, about which other parties they would be willing to cooperate with. There must be a solid agreement on governing – similar to the German coalition agreement – to which the parties will adhere even if quarrels about certain issues might emerge later. Despite the latter, then, the foundations of the work of governing would remain stable.

Once such an agreement has been reached, the party chairs would appear in public and subsequently form a parliamentary majority. In the case of a presidential election, the winner would take a similar initiative. Such a procedure would enhance the role of the parties and redefine the office of prime minister (although a few political scientists would prefer simply to abolish that office). And there is no getting around it: the almighty power of the president of the French state would have to be rethought and limited and Article 20 of the French Constitution finally applied: »The government shall determine and conduct the policy of the nation.«