Name: France's Prime Minister resigns after less than a month on the job
Uploaded: 2025-10-07T13:56:42.000Z
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France descending into deeper political gridlock.

The country's fifth prime minister in two years, quitting less than a month into his tenure.

There are a lot of red lines in the mouths of many, at least some, not everybody.

However, the very principle of building a compromise between political parties and is to be able to combine green lines and take into account a certain number of red lines.

Just hours after unveiling his new cabinet, his ministers were supposed to convene for the first time today.

Instead, it is back to square one for a government that has been essentially spinning its wheels for over a year now, putting President Emmanuel Macron in an even tougher spot spot than he was before.

CNN's Melissa Bell back with us, having an hour.

And Melissa Le Cornu, officially France's shortest ever serving prime minister.

What happened and just what are the consequences here?

All kinds of consequences in the immediate Future for France's 2026 budget.

The timetable by which this budget needed to be presented to Parliament, which was by October, mid October, just a week away, now means that however quickly and if the French president decides to nominate a new prime minister, he simply won't have time to organize around himself for government present and draw up a new parliament, a new, a new budget in time.

So that's looking extremely unlikely at this stage.

It doesn't look like they will get before Parliament in time.

The proposals for 2226 budget, remember in the context where, Becky, it was extremely urgent that budget reform was pushed through, that budget cuts were made because of this growing debt crisis that France faces.

So that's one first very important consequence to come out of this.

The other is, of course, that as you say, after just 27 days, this hope that this particular prime minister, a very close ally of President Macron, but

also someone who is considered relatively consensual, able, it was thought, to cobble together a government by drawing on the mainstream left and right in order to try and govern and draw up that proposed budget.

The fact that he's failed does lead to questions about what can happen next.

He's the fourth politician drawn from the political center here in France to try and fail to do that.

Which suggests that at this stage, although technically he could, constitutionally he could, it's very unlikely that political, that politically Emmanuel Macron might choose once again to try this tried and failed attempt to, to lead from the center with a centrist mp, PM Rather, the only other choice choices available to him would be to choose, say, a prime minister drawn from the far right with all the difficulties that would have in getting consensus on the left, or a prime minister drawn from the left with all the difficulties you'd have in drawing consensus from the right.

And especially given that this latest scalp, to be claimed by France's instability, went this time not because he lost the vote of confidence, but

the very cabinet ministers you'd appointed 12 hours ago, many, many of them extremely disgruntled on the traditional right by the fact that not enough of them got seats.

So there's now this rupture between President Macron's center and the traditional right.

And that makes it very difficult to see how naming a new prime minister would help.

The other solution, Becky, would be yet another dissolution, a second one in as many years, with the danger that at this stage, the polls suggest that Marine Le Pen's far right party would do even better this time than it did in 2024, with, of course, repercussions then for President Macron's majority and also his ability to lead.

What he said is that he will stay on now until the presidential election of 2027, whatever else happens.

France, of course, suffering a ratings downgrade some weeks ago.

Earlier this year, the markets under pressure on the back of the Prime Minister's departure.

And we're just going to show the CAC 40, the.

The stock market and how it cl lows down just less than one and a half percent today.

One expert suggesting the worst case scenario for France's financial markets would be a Macron resignation.

Assuming that he does survive, what are the ramifications for the French president and for France at this stage?

Well, on the question, on the question of a particular resignation of the French president, it's extremely unlikely.

The far left are calling, have been calling for some time for.

For his impeachment, which works slightly differently to the way it works in the United States.

Very difficult procedure for them to put through Parliament.

Essentially, it has to be his decision, because that procedure is so difficult to go.

And again, this is not speaking in the wake of this particular resignation, but

the last one, Francois Bayroux, he said, look, I'm staying, whatever, whatever is happening.

The chorus of people calling for his resignation has certainly been grown, but he seems determined to stay.

So again, we go back to his options, either dissolution or naming a new prime minister.

There are growing calls that dissolution is the only option left open to him.

With the prospect of the far right looking better than ever.

And the danger, of course, at this stage is, as you mentioned alluded to in your question just then, Becky, that as this political gridlock continues, which is likely to as long as he's president, there's simply no way around that.

It's very difficult to, to see an alternative to a sort of lame duck presidency with a lot of political instability until the presidential election of 2027, should he decide to stay as he's pledged to so far.

What that means is that the French debt, which has now reached about 116% of economic annual output, will not be resolved in terms of the fact that there will be no budget pushed through, because that would take tough political choices.

It would take a big majority, would take political will.

There's none of that here in France right now.

And that means that that's, that's set to stay.

Hence what you saw today, further difficulty on the CAC as a result of this latest resignation.

It simply does not look good for France's ability to tackle this.

It's good to have you, Melissa, thank you.

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France's Prime Minister resigns after less than a month on the job

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