An Isolated Macron Is Pushing the Limits of France’s Political System

PARIS—French democracy wasn’t built for the crisis that’s enveloping the presidency of Emmanuel Macron.

In an effort to pull France out of its fiscal spiral, Macron is exhausting a battery of tools available to him under the constitution as guarantor of France’s modern Fifth Republic. He dissolved a rowdy National Assembly last year only to see voters elect an even more divided lower house of parliament. Since then, he has appointed one prime minister after another, only to see them felled in confidence votes or resign.