The resignation of Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has pushed President Emmanuel Macron closer than ever to his ultimate constitutional power: the “nuclear option” of dissolving the National Assembly and calling snap legislative elections. This latest government collapse may have made this high-stakes gamble unavoidable.
For months, Macron has resisted this option, likely fearing that new elections could result in an even more fragmented and hostile parliament, potentially strengthening far-right and far-left parties. He has preferred to try and govern with a minority, a strategy that has now definitively failed.
The swift and contemptuous rejection of Lecornu’s government demonstrates the futility of the current approach. If the parliament is unwilling to even allow a new government to be formed, then the basis for cohabitation, however tense, has disappeared. The institutions are in a state of total gridlock.
Dissolving parliament is Macron’s only way to try and break this deadlock. It would be a direct appeal to the French people to give him a workable majority, framing the election as a choice between his agenda and continued chaos. It is a bet-the-presidency move.
While the decision has not yet been made, the fall of Lecornu makes it a far more likely scenario. The President has now lost three prime ministers to this parliament. He may conclude that he has nothing left to lose by rolling the dice and triggering the one option that could fundamentally reset the political landscape.
