FLASH
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The legislative compromise will be put on the back burner due to political confrontations, while the race for the Elysée heats up...
French President Emmanuel Macron's celebrations over the imminent approval of the 2026 budget will be short-lived. Once approved, he will be a "lame goose" until next spring's presidential elections.
Current and former ministers, lawmakers and political aides, including three Macron allies, told Politico that now that the budget debate is over and the concerns of angry citizens and jittery markets have calmed, the entire cycle of French politics will shift into campaign mode.
First up are next month's municipal elections, where voters in France's 35,000 communes will elect mayors and city councils. Then all eyes will turn to the race for the all-powerful presidency. Macron cannot run again because of term limits, and polls show he could be replaced by a candidate from the far-right National Rally.
"It's the end of Macron's mandate," said a former adviser to Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu.
Gabriel Attal, Macron's former prime minister who now leads the French president's party, confirmed in an interview with French media that he told his supporters that the budget marked the "end" of Macron's second term.
"I stand behind what I said," Attal told FranceInfo.
As president, Macron continues to exert a strong influence over foreign affairs and defense, two areas that will keep him on the world stage given the geopolitical turmoil caused by the second term of US President Donald Trump.
However, domestically, he is weak due to the fragmented Parliament, emerging from the early elections of 2024.
Lecornu managed to avoid a fall only because of the budget, as his two immediate predecessors did, thanks to his political acumen, some compromises and some bold decisions. These included suspending Macron’s major pension reform that raised the retirement age and reneging on his promise not to use a constitutional backdoor to pass it without a vote.
“Lecornu was smart enough to get the budget phase through and through on a high note. This is commendable, given that former prime ministers Michel Barnier and François Bayrou failed to do so, and he did so with considerable skill,” said a ministerial adviser who, like others quoted in this article, was granted anonymity to speak candidly.
But Lecornu's decision to prioritize uncontroversial measures in the coming weeks speaks to the difficulties that lie ahead.
These priorities include defining the division of power between the central government and local authorities, as well as improving and centralizing welfare payments that are currently distributed on an ad hoc basis. Lecornu is also planning to start work early on France's fiscal plans for 2027, in an effort to prevent a third budget crisis in a row.
"There will be presidential elections in 2027. Before that, we need to agree on a final result that allows the country to move forward," government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon said on Sud Radio on Thursday.
Lecornu has repeatedly stressed that his government should disengage from the presidential race, blaming "partisan appetites" for both the budget crisis and the fall of his 14-hour government, which was eventually replaced with a group of less ambitious ministers.
But it is ironic that some French government officials and MPs are now saying that the self-proclaimed warrior-monk prime minister may have elevated himself to the realm of presidential candidate with his budget victory.
Mathieu Gallard, a pollster at Ipsos, said Lecornu had clearly become a more viable presidential candidate, but noted that the transition from prime minister to president "is always a difficult task."
One parliamentary leader was far less optimistic. They said the same “partisan appetites” that Lecornu has long warned about are likely to cost him his job before voters go to the polls to choose Macron’s successor.
“Lecornu has few friends… And now that the budget has been approved, any political group can have fun removing him from office to raise their flag before the next presidential election,” the leader said. /Adapted from Politico /
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