France's Permanent Crisis: What Five Prime Ministers in Two Years Tells Us About the Fifth Republic

There's a dark joke making the rounds in Paris: the average tenure of a French prime minister is now shorter than a Netflix series. Sébastien Lecornu, who survived his first government for exactly 26 days before being reappointed, might appreciate the humor. Or maybe not.

On Tuesday, Lecornu invoked Article 49.3, the constitutional nuclear option that lets the government bypass parliament, to force through the 2026 budget. He had promised not to do this. His two predecessors made the same promise. They're both gone now.

I've been watching French politics closely from my position sofa in The Hague. The Dutch press treats each new development with a mixture of fascination and horror, like watching a slow-motion car crash in a country they thought they understood.

The Numbers Tell the Story

Since January 2024, France has burned through five prime ministers: Elisabeth Borne, Gabriel Attal, Michel Barnier, François Bayrou, and now Lecornu (twice, if you count his brief resignation and reappointment). That's the worst government instability since the Fourth Republic collapsed in 1958.

The budget deficit for 2025 came in at 5.4% of GDP, well above the EU's 3% target. Government debt has hit 117% of GDP, third-highest in the eurozone after Greece and Italy. Interest payments on that debt now exceed the entire education budget.

And the 2026 budget that Lecornu just forced through? It aims for 5% deficit. Still above target. Still accumulating debt. Just slightly less catastrophically than before.

A Structural Crisis

Here's what I think people outside France don't fully appreciate: this isn't about individual prime ministers failing. It's about a constitutional system that no longer works.

The Fifth Republic was designed for a different era, one where two major blocs (left and right) alternated in power. The president would have a parliamentary majority. Governments would govern. Reforms would happen.

That system has shattered.

France now has three roughly equal blocs: Macron's centrists, the left-wing NUPES coalition, and Le Pen's National Rally. None can govern alone. None will work with the others.

Macron's Renaissance party has 99 seats. The National Rally has 143. NUPES has about 150 combined. You need 289 for a majority.

Do the math. There is no stable majority available.

The Lecornu Calculation

So why did Lecornu invoke 49.3 despite promising not to?

Because the alternative was worse.

The Socialists, who are technically part of NUPES but have been flirting with pragmatism, signaled they wouldn't vote for the budget, but they also wouldn't vote against the government. That's not support. That's just choosing not to actively destroy.

Lecornu calculated that a motion of censure would fall just short. He was right. The government survived by about 12 votes.

But "surviving" is a generous description. The government exists. It passes budgets through constitutional bypass. It cannot pass major reforms. It cannot address the structural problems everyone agrees France has.

It's not governing. It's just not dying.

The View from The Hague

Working at the intersection of French and Dutch politics gives me an interesting vantage point.

The Netherlands is also struggling with coalition formation, the new D66-VVD-CDA minority government has just 66 seats, ten short of a majority. But the Dutch approach couldn't be more different.

When Dutch coalition talks stall, the parties appoint an informateur, bring in mediators, hold structured negotiations. It takes months, sometimes longer, but eventually a workable government emerges.

The French system has no such mechanism. Macron simply appoints whoever he thinks might survive, watches them fail, and tries again.

There's also a fundamental difference in political culture. Dutch parties accept that governing from a minority means making concessions. French parties treat any compromise as betrayal. La France Insoumise's Mathilde Panot called the Socialists' decision not to topple Lecornu "the height of absurdity", as if stability itself were a sin.

What Happens Next?

The immediate crisis may have passed. The Socialists have signaled they won't vote against the government, at least not yet. Lecornu's budget will probably scrape through. France will muddle on.

But the underlying problems remain.

The next 18 months will be dominated by positioning for 2027. Marine Le Pen's appeal is being heard, if her conviction stands, she's barred from running. If it's overturned, she becomes the immediate frontrunner. No party wants to be associated with painful but necessary fiscal decisions. The far right, which has been remarkably patient, is waiting.

Recent polls suggest that if elections were held tomorrow, the National Rally would emerge as the largest party.

Some analysts are already drawing comparisons to the 1958 crisis that ended the Fourth Republic. Back then, at least, Charles de Gaulle was waiting in the wings to restore order. Who plays that role today? Marine Le Pen? Jean-Luc Mélenchon? The thought should worry anyone who cares about the European project.

The European Dimension

France's crisis isn't just a domestic affair. This is the EU's second-largest economy, home to one of Europe's biggest militaries, a permanent member of the UN Security Council. An ungovernable France means a weakened Europe, at exactly the moment when European unity matters most.

The timing couldn't be worse. Trump is threatening tariffs, rattling NATO with his Greenland comments, and questioning the transatlantic alliance. Russia continues its war in Ukraine. Europe desperately needs French leadership. Instead, it gets a government that survives by promising not to do anything ambitious.

At Davos last week, Macron gave a typically eloquent speech about European sovereignty and strategic autonomy. But speeches don't pass budgets. Reforms require stable governments that can make unpopular choices and defend them. France has neither.

The Fifth Republic was designed to prevent the chaos of the Fourth. Sixty-seven years later, that chaos has returned. The question now is whether the system can adapt, or whether France will eventually need a Sixth Republic to fix what the Fifth has broken.