Macron Wanted to Rewrite the Rules of French Politics

In less than a year, France has seen three different governments, and the political crisis shows no sign of ending—casting a shadow over the final year and a half of Emmanuel Macron’s presidency and his domestic legacy.

This week, yet another minority cabinet narrowly survived a no-confidence vote. But it remains the weakest government in decades and could collapse at any moment if opposition parties unite to bring it down. The country now faces two grueling months of parliamentary battles over what was once a basic act of governance—the passage of the budget.

Political observers agree that the main casualty of the current turmoil is the president himself.

Pro-European and business-oriented, Macron came to power in 2017 promising to “revolutionize politics” and listen to citizens as no one had before him. He spoke of pragmatically drawing ideas from both the left and the right to liberalize the economy, create jobs after decades of mass unemployment, and reduce inequality. His central pledge was to halt the rise of the far right by giving voters fewer reasons to back extremists.

His presidency has been marked by crises: the “yellow vest” protest movement, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine. After his re-election in 2022, Macron lost his absolute majority in parliament.

The president’s standing deteriorated sharply after he gambled on snap parliamentary elections in June 2024—a move that backfired just as Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally was riding high from its victory in the European Parliament elections. The result was a fragmented assembly split into three blocs—left, centrist, and far-right—with none commanding a majority. Macron’s centrist base began to unravel.

“The crisis in France is very deep,” says Rémi Lefebvre, a political science professor at the University of Lille. “The problem is that it’s multilayered: there’s a public debt crisis, a social crisis of inequality, a weakened party system, and the rise of the far right. Macron is not the sole cause, but he has accelerated these dynamics.”

To avoid the government’s collapse, Macron and his new prime minister—ally Sébastien Lecornu—turned to the Socialists for support. In exchange, they offered a symbolic suspension of the centerpiece reform of Macron’s second term: the 2023 pension law, which raised the retirement age from 62 to 64.

According to Lefebvre, Macron’s second term risks being remembered as “chaotic” and largely ineffective. The decision not to appoint a left-wing government last year—when the center-left coalition won the most seats but fell short of an absolute majority—he views as a breach of democratic principles.

“If there is one political leader who has emerged from the sequence of events that began with the snap elections of July 2024 severely weakened, it is Emmanuel Macron and his Renaissance party,” says Stuart Shaw, director of the research firm Verian Group. “All the polls confirm this.”

According to pollsters, only 14–16% of French citizens now trust the president. Even his once-effective international activism—previously a source of domestic strength—no longer helps. “His popularity has continued to decline in recent months despite an intense international agenda,” Shaw added.

Support has also eroded among his former backers, driven by a perception that Macron shows little empathy for people’s everyday struggles.

“One of his core promises was to block the far right by assuring the French they would no longer need to vote for them,” Shaw recalled. “But during his presidency, support for the National Rally has only grown, and more people now see it as a legitimate alternative.”

“That’s a profound shift,” he continued. “In the past, many voted for radicals as a form of protest. Today, a significant share of the French view it as a deliberate choice—and Macron may bear some responsibility for that.”

Political historian Jean Garrigues argues that the current president’s image is the worst since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958.

“He has sunk to an exceptional level of unpopularity—but more importantly, to an exceptional level of hatred,” Garrigues said. “His Socialist predecessor François Hollande also hit record lows in approval, but he never faced this degree of personal animosity.”

According to the historian, the roots of this go deeper than the current crisis. Macron came to power in 2017 on a wave of hope and belief in a “man of the moment,” but disappointment soon followed: his promises to work with all political forces and “always listen to citizens” never materialized.