Former French economy and finance minister Bruno Le Maire has withdrawn from his planned appointment as defence minister in an effort to help resolve France’s deepening political crisis.
Le Maire said on Monday that he had offered President Emmanuel Macron his immediate resignation and that the president had accepted.
“I hope that this decision will allow discussions to resume with a view to forming a new government, which France needs,” he wrote on X.
The announcement followed the surprise resignation earlier in the day of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, who stepped down after just a month in office.
Lecornu, who unveiled his partial Cabinet line-up on Sunday night, quit after the conservative Républicains party threatened to withdraw from the governing coalition.
Party leader Bruno Retailleau reacted angrily to Le Maire’s planned appointment, saying it fell short of the change he had been promised and expressing frustration over the limited influence conservatives had been given in the new government.
According to media reports, Retailleau also accused Lecornu of failing to inform him in advance about Le Maire’s nomination.
Criticism over soaring national debt
Le Maire served as economy and finance minister from 2017 to 2024, steering France through the Covid-19 pandemic and the energy crisis with policies aimed at shielding businesses and households from severe hardship.
However, during his tenure, France’s public debt rose by €1 trillion ($1.1 trillion), a fact that drew heavy criticism — including from within the conservative ranks — over his new appointment to the senior post of defence minister.
Uncertain path forward for Macron
It remains unclear whether Le Maire’s withdrawal will ease the crisis. President Macron met the outgoing Prime Minister Lecornu again at the Élysée Palace on Monday afternoon, though no details of their talks were made public.
French media speculated that Macron may be seeking to persuade Lecornu, one of the president’s closest allies, to stay in office to stabilize the government.
France’s government collapsed Monday after the country’s Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu tendered his resignation less than a day after appointing his cabinet. The resignation of the country’s second-highest-ranking public official plunged France further into a political crisis that has seen a rotating cast of five different prime ministers in less than two years.
France has been mired in political paralysis since President Emmanuel Macron, who appoints the prime minister, called snap national elections last year that left no political party with an outright majority in the parliament, which is called the National Assembly.
“The political parties continue to adopt a posture as if they all had an absolute majority in the National Assembly. And basically, I found myself in a situation where I was ready to compromise, but each political party wants the other political party to adopt its entire program,” Lecornu said in his resignation speech on Monday.
French outgoing Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, who presented his government’s resignation to the French president, delivers a statement at the Hotel Matignon in Paris, France, Oct. 6, 2025.
Stephane Mahe/REUTERS
The leader of France’s far-right movement, Marine Le Pen, called on Monday for new snap parliamentary elections in the aftermath of the government’s collapse. Le Pen’s anti-immigration, nationalist National Rally (RN) party was previously relegated to the fringes of national politics, but it has captured a considerable number of seats in the fragmented parliament in recent years.
“There is no solution, there won’t be one tomorrow: I call on the President of the Republic to dissolve the National Assembly,” Le Pen said in a social media post.
Lecornu, a political ally of the increasingly embattled Macron, held the position of prime minister for just less than a month, but only announced a new cabinet to govern the country on Sunday. Lecornu’s decision to step down makes him the shortest-serving prime minister in the history of the Fifth French Republic.
Fearing an ascendant far-right, which also swept up many seats in European Union parliamentary elections in June 2024, Macron gambled on his party and its allies winning the surprise election for seats in the National Assembly that he called soon after. But his bet did not pay off, and his centrist coalition lost a huge number of seats to both Le Pen’s party and an alliance of far-left parties.
Marine Le Pen delivers a speech prior to a confidence vote over the government’s austerity budget at the National Assembly in Paris on Sept. 8, 2025.
Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty
Political instability has followed ever since, with successive governments folding after coming up against a deadlocked National Assembly. The instability has been amplified by a growing national debt crisis and a ballooning budget deficit which have knocked confidence in the EU’s second largest economy.
Last month, the U.S. credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded France’s credit rating, citing “increased fragmentation and polarization of domestic politics,” and a deterioration of the nation’s public finances.
Lecornu’s predecessor François Bayrou was ousted from power in September by a no confidence vote in the parliament after he failed to push through a budget program that would have cut public spending in an effort to address the country’s mounting debt.
Nationwide strikes over potential austerity measures in the looming French government budget for 2026 have also caused chaos across the country in recent weeks.
On Thursday, thousands of protesters, led by students, trade unions and retirees, took to the streets of more than 200 towns and cities across France to denounce proposed spending cuts and demand higher taxes on the rich.
Emmet Lyons is a news desk editor at the CBS News London bureau, coordinating and producing stories for all CBS News platforms. Prior to joining CBS News, Emmet worked as a producer at CNN for four years.
PARIS—French authorities detained crew members of a tanker carrying Russian crude oil and are investigating whether it played a role in last week’s drone incursions in Denmark.
French soldiers boarded the tanker, which is under Western sanctions, as it was en route to India from Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Primorsk. The vessel was traveling south through the Bay of Biscay when it turned east and headed toward Saint-Nazaire, home to Europe’s largest shipyard, according to the ship-tracking service Kpler. Authorities took the tanker’s captain and second-in-command into custody.
French soldiers have boarded an oil tanker believed to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet”, used to evade sanctions imposed because of the war in Ukraine.
The Boracay left Russia last month and was off the coast of Denmark when unidentified drones forced the temporary closure of several airports last week. It has been anchored off western France for a few days.
President Emmanuel Macron said the crew had committed “serious offences” at an EU leaders’ summit in Copenhagen on Wednesday but did not elaborate.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia had no knowledge of the vessel.
AFP news agency quoted a source as saying French military personnel had boarded the vessel on Saturday.
Macron refused to be drawn on the question of whether the ship may have been used as a platform for the drone flights that caused such disruption in Denmark last week.
Prosecutors in Brest have opened an investigation on two counts: refusing an order to stop and failing to justify the nationality of the ship’s flag.
Many Western countries imposed sanctions on Russian energy by limiting imports and capping the price of its oil following Russia’s fill-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
To evade these sanctions, Moscow built up what has been referred to as a “shadow fleet” of tankers whose ownership and movements could be obscured.
Russia is believed to have a fleet of several hundred tankers which are registered in other countries and are used to export its petrol. Macron said that Russia’s shadow fleet contained between 600 and 1,000 ships.
The Boracay, also known as Pushpa and Kiwala, is a Benin-flagged vessel but has been listed under UK and EU sanctions on Russia.
It was detained by Estonian authorities earlier this year for sailing without a valid country flag.
It had set off the Russian port of Primorsk outside Saint Petersburg on 20 September and sailed through the Baltic Sea and past Denmark before entering the North Sea and carrying on through the English Channel.
It had been scheduled to arrive in Vadinar in north-western India on 20 October, according to data from the Marine Traffic tracking website. However it was followed by a French warship after it rounded the Brittany coast and then altered course and headed east towards the French coast.
EU leaders have been meeting in Copenhagen under pressure to boost European defence after a series of Russian incursions into EU airspace, and days after drones targeted Danish airports.
Copenhagen airport, followed by several Danish airports and military sites on the Jutland peninsula, faced drone disruption last week.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters that “from a European perspective there is only one country… willing to threaten us and that is Russia, and therefore we need a very strong answer back”.
Danish police have not found any evidence that Russia was behind last week’s drone disruption, but Frederiksen linked it explicitly to other hybrid attacks such as Russian drones over Poland.
It was part of a pattern that had to be viewed from a European perspective, she told reporters on Wednesday.
The incursions have become most acute for countries on the EU’s eastern flank such as Poland and Estonia.
A number of member states have already backed plans for a multi-layered “drone wall” to quickly detect, then track and destroy Russian drones.
As world leaders gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, French President Emmanuel Macron is seizing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to stake out global leadership — and, critics argue, to position himself as a counterweight to President Donald Trump.
Renewing his call for recognition of a Palestinian state, Macron has also put forward a proposal for a multinational force to take over from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “the day after” the Gaza war, according to The Times of Israel.
For Macron, the United Nations General Assembly is a stage to project France as an alternative power. “Macron’s policy on the Israel-Palestine conflict reflects his broader ambitions on France’s foreign policy, that is, the idea that the country, as a middle European power, can offer an alternative to the U.S.-China competition,” Jean-Loup Samaan, a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute, told Fox News Digital. “In this specific case, Macron believes that his push for a Palestinian state will increase French credibility in the Arab world and the so-called ‘Global South.’”
French President Emmanuel Macron, center, departs after a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 24, 2025, in Washington.(Alex Brandon/AP)
“We have to recognize the legitimate right of Palestinian people to have a state,” Macron said in an interview broadcast Thursday on Israel’s Channel 12. “If you don’t give a political perspective, in fact, you just put them in the hands of those who are just proposing a security approach, an aggressive approach.” He went further, denouncing Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza City as “absolutely unacceptable” and “a huge mistake.”
The comments infuriated both Israel and the United States, which argue that recognition emboldens extremists and rewards Hamas, the group responsible for the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre.
Macron, however, insists recognition is the only way forward, reviving the long-stalled two-state solution. More than 145 countries already recognize Palestine, and European allies, including the U.K., Canada, Australia, Portugal, Malta, Belgium, and Luxembourg, are expected to follow France’s lead in the coming days.
A man holds a sign reading “Free Palestine” during a demonstration at the Place de la Republique in Paris on June 9, 2025.(REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier/File Photo)
Yet analysts warn Macron’s track record suggests otherwise. “If you want to know how UN-sponsored peacekeepers do with terrorist groups in the region, we have a 20-year case study in UNIFIL, which enabled rather than denied Hezbollah the ability to grow into a massive military threat,” Richard Goldberg, senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital.
“Macron is certainly driven by his beleaguered domestic political situation and the large French Muslim population, but in his own mind he’s also been down this road in Lebanon, where France has historic equities. The record is pretty clear: Macron has never delivered on anything; security improvements have only come through U.S. pressure and Israeli military might,” Goldberg said.
Just days before Macron’s push, Trump met with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Jared Kushner to discuss Gaza’s future — and is set to hold a meeting tomorrow with Arab leaders on “the day after,” sources confirm to Fox News Digital. The overlap has fueled speculation that Macron is maneuvering to outshine Trump and claim the mantle of statesman-in-chief.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump after a meeting at the White House on April 7, 2025, in Washington.(REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt)
Goldberg added bluntly: “He may perceive himself that way, but I don’t think many in Washington spend a lot of time thinking about him.”
Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, called Macron’s maneuvering “a blatant power-grab.” She told Fox News Digital: “The fact is that would-be Emperor Macron has no clothes. The promise he is waving around of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ ‘promise’ to soon hold elections and abandon dictatorship and terror screams ‘scam.’”
“At home, foreign policy topics are not driving the current political troubles, which are primarily focused on France’s need to reduce its fiscal deficit,” Samaan noted. “I think Macron’s initiative on Palestine has more to do with his personal aspirations in terms of legacy. He’ll leave office in 2027.”
The proposed Gaza force, modeled on UNIFIL in Lebanon where France has long played a role, would demand French resources and likely face opposition in parliament from both the far left and far right, and without U.S. endorsement, Israeli buy-in, or domestic consensus in France, the initiative could stall before it begins.
Efrat Lachter is an investigative reporter and war correspondent. Her work has taken her to 40 countries, including Ukraine, Russia, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, and Afghanistan. She is a recipient of the 2024 Knight-Wallace Fellowship for Journalism. Lachter can be followed on X @efratlachter.
President Trump suggested last week that it could have been a mistake when Russian drones invaded Polish airspace, although Russian drones then invaded Romanian airspace. French President Emmanuel Macron tells “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that “there is no mistake.”
French President Macron tells “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan that France’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state is necessary “to isolate Hamas” and help stop the war. Watch more of Macron’s interview Sunday morning on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
The first deportation flights of migrants under the UK’s new returns deal with France are expected to begin next week, the BBC understands.
The ‘one in, one out’ pilot scheme was set up as part of a deal announced by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron during his state visit to the UK in July.
Dozens of migrants were detained in Dover last month under the agreement and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said this week that they are are expected to be returned to France “imminently”.
It is understood that formal removal directions have been issued to asylum seekers to say they will be deported to France within five days.
In return, it was agreed that the UK will accept an equal number of asylum seekers who have not tried to cross and can pass security and eligibility checks.
Critics, including the Conservatives, argue the policy would prove “unworkable and wide open to abuse”.
It is also understood that MPs will get a chance to question new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood on the deal during Home Office questions in Parliament on Monday.
As of 8 September, 30,164 people had crossed the Channel in small boats in 2025, up from 22,440 for the same period in 2024.
[BBC]
Under the new treaty, published on 4 August, France agreed to take back adults or accompanied children who make a journey to the UK by small boat, once any asylum claim is withdrawn or declared inadmissible.
Both countries have agreed to work towards making transfers with three months after small boat arrivals have entered the UK.
The UK is also paying France almost £500m over three years – as agreed by the previous Conservative government – to fund extra officers on the French coast.
Protesters blocked roads, set blazes and were met with volleys of police tear gas Wednesday in Paris and elsewhere in France, seeking to heap pressure on President Emmanuel Macron by attempting to give his new prime minister a baptism of fire.
The interior minister announced nearly 200 arrests in the first hours of the planned day of nationwide protests.
Although falling short of its self-declared intention to “Block Everything,” the protest movement that started online and gathered steam over the summer caused widespread disruptions, defying an exceptional deployment of 80,000 police who broke up barricades and swiftly made arrests.
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said a bus was set on fire in the western city of Rennes and that damage to a power line blocked trains on a line in the southwest. He alleged that protesters were attempting to create “a climate of insurrection.”
Protesters burn objects as they gather to block the Viaduc de Calix bridge during a demonstration as part of the “Bloquons tout” (“Block everything”) protest movement, in Caen, northwest France, Sept. 10, 2025.
LOU BENOIST/AFP/Getty
The protesters, angry at Macron over his leadership and austerity policies, had planned to disrupt activity of all types across the country.
Two days after François Bayrou was ousted as prime minister in a parliamentary vote of no confidence and then replaced Tuesday by Sébastien Lecornu, thousands of protesters responded to online calls to disrupt the country.
The “Bloquons Tout” (Block Everything) movement had gathered momentum on social media and in encrypted chats over the summer. Its call for a day of blockades, strikes, demonstrations, and other acts of protest came as Macron — one of the movement’s main targets — installed Lecornu as his fourth prime minister in just 12 months.
The movement, which has grown virally with no clear identified leadership, has a broad array of demands — many targeting contested belt-tightening budget plans that Bayrou had championed before his ouster — as well as broader complaints about inequality.
Students and protesters block the Helene Boucher high school with a barricade of burning trash cans is erected to block traffic near Place de la Nation, in Paris, France, Sept. 10, 2025, as part of the “Bloquons tout” (Block everything) movement to protest against austerity measures announced for the 2026 budget and to denounce President Emmanuel Macron’s policies.
Jerome Gilles/NurPhoto/Getty
Calls online for strikes, boycotts, blockades and other forms of protest on Wednesday were accompanied with appeals to avoid violence.
The spontaneity of “Block Everything” is reminiscent of the “Yellow Vest” protest movement that rocked Macron’s first term as president. It started with workers camping out on traffic circles to protest a hike in fuel taxes, sporting high-visibility vests. It quickly spread to people across political, regional, social and generational divides venting their anger over perceived economic injustice and Macron’s leadership.
French President Macron late Tuesday appointed Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu as France’s new prime minister and tasked him with immediately trying to get the country’s fractious political parties to agree on a budget for one of the world’s biggest economies.
Lecornu, 39, was the youngest defense minister in French history and was overseeing a major military buildup spurred by Russia’s war in Ukraine. A longtime Macron loyalist, Lecornu is now France’s fourth prime minister in barely a year.
A former conservative who joined Macron’s centrist movement in 2017, Lecornu has held posts in local governments, overseas territories and during Macron’s yellow vest “great debate,” when he helped manage a surge of anti-government protest with dialogue. He also offered talks on autonomy during unrest in the French overseas region of Guadeloupe in 2021.
His rise reflects Macron’s instinct to reward loyalty, but also the need for continuity as repeated budget showdowns have toppled his predecessors and left France in drift.
French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu, left, receives President Emmanuel Macron at the 55th International Paris Airshow at Le Bourget Airport near Paris, June 20, 2025.
Benoit Tessier / AP
Macron’s quick decision to name Lecornu comes ahead of a day of mass disruption planned for Wednesday by a protest movement called “Block Everything” that has prompted the government to deploy an exceptional 80,000 police to keep order.
Bayrou gambled that lawmakers would back his view that France must slash public spending to rein in its huge debts. Instead, they seized on the vote to gang up against the 74-year-old centrist who was appointed by Macron last December.
The demise of Bayrou’s short-lived minority government heralds renewed uncertainty and a risk of prolonged legislative deadlock for France as it wrestles both with its internal budget difficulties and, internationally, wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the shifting priorities of U.S. President Trump.
Drafting a budget will be a top priority for Lecornu, and normally a new prime minister would form the new government before negotiating the nation’s finances in Parliament. However, Macron has asked Lecornu to first consult with all of the political parties in Parliament first to try to agree on a budget before assembling his team.
“The prime minister’s action will be guided by the defense of our independence and our power, serving the French and the political and institutional stability for the unity of our country,” Macron said in a statement.
When the 2018 yellow vest movement against social injustice erupted, prompting months of sometimes violent demonstrations in the streets, Lecornu was chosen by Macron to lead the so-called “great debate” across the country aimed at appeasing tensions.
A minister of overseas territories from 2020 to 2022, Lecornu faced rioting and strikes linked to the pandemic in Guadeloupe, located in the Caribbean, and offered to discuss greater autonomy for the territory from the French mainland.
The 413 billion euros ($435 billion) defense spending package Lecornu championed for 2024-2030 represents the most significant spending hike in France in half a century. The money aimed to modernize France’s nuclear arsenal, augment intelligence spending and develop more remote-controlled weapons.
French President Emmanuel Macron is facing down another political crisis and will be forced to choose a new prime minister for the fourth time in less than 12 months following a vote of no-confidence on Monday.
Prime Minister François Bayrou is expected to resign after a sweeping majority voted to boot him from the minority government in a 364–194 vote over his controversial cuts to public spending in an attempt to reduce France’s national debt.
Macron appointed Bayrou in December following a slew of resignations over the year when three other prime ministers left the top job.
French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou at Elysee Palace for an awards ceremony for those who helped restore Notre-Dame, in Paris, France on April 15, 2025.(Pierre Suu/Getty Images)
The French president is expected to appoint another prime minister – the fifth in less than two years.
France is Europe’s second-largest economy, but according to Bayrou, it is facing an economic crisis.
But the centrist leader found himself facing growing opposition after he unveiled plans to reduce the fiscal deficit to 4.6% of GDP next year to secure a savings of $51 billion through a series of spending cuts, tax hikes and the dissolving of two public holidays.
Multiple reports on Monday noted that by the end of the first quarter of 2025, France’s public debt equated to 114% of its GDP.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron (C), US president-elect Donald Trump (L) and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pose before a meeting at The Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris on Dec. 7, 2024. (Sarah Meyssonnier/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
But the vote of no confidence could signal increased gridlock within France’s government at a time when Macron is not only taking on a leading role when it comes to opposing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and the existential threats that poses for European allies, but increasing global instability and tense ties with the U.S. – which is also one of its chief trading partners.
It’s unclear if Bayrou will resign Monday night or when Macron publicly addresses the vote.
Caitlin McFall is a Reporter at Fox News Digital covering Politics, U.S. and World news.
CEO Arthur Mensch is steering Mistral away from the AGI hype and toward Europe’s A.I. sovereignty. Photo by Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
Paris-based Mistral AI is on track for a new funding round that would value the A.I. startup at 12 billion euros ($14 billion), Bloomberg reports. The investment, expected to total around 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion), would solidify the company’s position at the center of Europe’s sovereign A.I. strategy and bring it closer to its goal of challenging dominant U.S. rivals.
Founded in 2023, Mistral has already raised some 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) over the past two years. Its upcoming valuation would more than double the 5.8 billion euros ($6.8 billion) figure it reached last June following a 468 million euro ($550 million) round that drew backers such as Andreessen Horowitz, Salesforce and Nvidia.
Mistral did not respond to requests for comment from Observer.
For now, the startup still pales in size compared to its Silicon Valley competitors. Anthropic closed a round earlier this month at a staggering $183 billion valuation, while OpenAI is reportedly eyeing $500 billion. Still, Mistral is eager to compete. Its products include an A.I. assistant called “Le Chat,” designed for European customers and positioned as an alternative to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude chatbots.
Mistral was co-founded by Arthur Mensch, a former researcher at Google DeepMind, along with former Meta researchers Timothée Lacroix and Guillaume Lample. Mistral has tried to distinguish itself by emphasizing open access. It has released several open-source language models. Unlike American A.I. giants, Mistral has also rejected pursuing AGI. Mensch, who serves as CEO, has said his firm is more focused on ensuring U.S. startups don’t dominate how the technology shapes global culture.
Mistral is central to Europe’s A.I. playbook
Mistral is part of a broader surge in European A.I. investment. In 2024, venture capital rounds involving A.I. and machine learning companies based in Europe were estimated to have reached 13.2 billion euros ($15.5 billion), up 20 percent from 2023, according to data from Pitchbook.
Mistral is part of a broader surge in European A.I. investment. In 2024, venture capital rounds involving A.I. and machine learning companies across the continent were expected to reach 13.2 billion euros ($15.5 billion), a 20 percent increase from the year before, according to PitchBook.
As one of Europe’s leading startups, Mistral is central to the region’s goal of building an A.I. ecosystem independent of technology from America or China. Earlier this year, the company partnered with Nvidia to launch a European A.I. platform that will allow companies to develop applications and strengthen domestic infrastructure. French President Emmanuel Macron hailed the initiative as “a game changer, because it will increase our sovereignty and it will allow us to do much more.”
Mistral’s rapid ascent is tied to broader efforts to bolster A.I. across Europe and France. Its Nvidia partnership followed Macron’s announcement at Paris’ global A.I. summit in February, where he pledged more than 100 billion euros ($117 billion) to support France’s A.I. industry. European players must move quickly, Macron stressed at the time: “We are committed to going faster and faster.”
Israel has cancelled a potential visit by France’s President Emmanuel Macron because Paris plans to recognize a Palestinian state, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said in a phone call with his French counterpart Jean-Noël Barrot on Thursday.
His ministry said that Sa’ar urged Barrot to reconsider the initiative to recognize a Palestinian state, saying the French proposal undermines stability in the Middle East and threatens Israel’s national and security interests.
He said as long as Paris persists in its initiative and efforts that harm Israel’s interests, there is no room for Macron’s visit to Israel.
Official plans for a possible Macron visit to Israel were not known.
He accused France of having taken “a series of anti-Israeli steps and positions” recently.
Several countries including France, Canada and Australia plan to recognize a Palestinian state in September.
Macron announced Paris’ plans in July. The Israeli government responded with sharp condemnation.
The last surviving member of the French resistance force that withstood a German advance in a key battle in the north African desert in World War II has died aged 103, authorities announced.
Paul Leterrier fought in the 1942 battle of Bir-Hakeim in Libya with the Free French Forces who had evaded the German occupation of the country.
Leterrier, who joined up with the Free French in 1941 following the Nazi occupation of France, had in 2024 participated alongside President Emmanuel Macron in the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy that marked the start of the German retreat from Europe.
“At 103 years old, Paul Leterrier… has joined his comrades who fell for France on the battlefield where together they fought to save our homeland,” said Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau on X.
The performance of the Free French Forces at Bir-Hakeim, where they succeeded in defending their position, slowed the advance of the Nazi forces under General Erwin Rommel and won the admiration of British premier Winston Churchill.
“It wasn’t fun, but we were in great spirits,” Leterrier recalled.
Leterrier had joined the Free French Forces after deserting his naval ship on a stop in Beirut in 1941 and joining English forces.
After Bir-Hakeim, he continued fighting in Africa, then fought with Allied forces in Italy and took part in Operation Dragoon, the 1944 Allied landings in southern France.
After the war, he worked in France’s internal security service.
France has over the last years gradually bade farewell to the final survivors of World War II.
Hubert Germain, the last surviving French Resistance fighter awarded the highest bravery order by Charles de Gaulle for his World War II exploits, died in 2021 aged 101.
French President Emmanuel Macron hailed the restoration of close ties between Paris and Berlin as he hosted German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at his summer residence on Thursday before high-level talks between ministers from both states.
After years of strained relations with Merz’s predecessor, Olaf Scholz, the French leader said the successful restart of relations can serve as a driving force for strengthening Europe.
Following the change of government in Berlin earlier this year, the two leaders have “opened a new chapter in Franco-German relations,” Macron said after welcoming his German counterpart to the Fort de Brégançon on the Côte d’Azur.
“I believe that the Franco-German tandem is now perfectly coordinated to create a stronger Europe in the areas of economy, trade and currency,” he stated.
Merz also emphasized the importance of the “axis” of the two countries’ ties, saying “Germany and France play a central role in this European Union, on this European continent.”
He also highlighted the crucial role of unity among all 27 EU member states. If this unity is achieved, “then we are truly strong, and Europe becomes a factor in the world,” Merz said.
“The developments in this world show how important it is for us to become a powerful factor in the world — economically, politically, and also in terms of security policy.”
Macron added that the relationship would be key in establishing “a Europe that asserts its geopolitical position in the Ukraine conflict in light of Russia’s war of aggression, and a Europe that has decided to rearm itself to ensure its protection.”
The relationship between Macron and Merz is considered significantly better than with predecessor Olaf Scholz.
However, a long list of differences in policy remains between the two countries, including the nuclear energy debate, France’s support for joint European debt and Germany’s backing for the MERCOSUR trade deal with South American countries.
Ministerial Council on Friday
Merz arrived in southern France on Thursday ahead of the two governments holding consultations on economic and security policy against the backdrop of a political crisis in Paris.
On Friday, half of Merz’s Cabinet will participate in the Ministerial Council in Toulon.
Among those expected to attend on the German side are Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil, Economy Minister Katherina Reiche, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, and Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt.
A Franco-German Defence and Security Council will later convene to discuss, in a smaller circle, the production of weapons systems in Europe as well as joint Franco-German armament projects.
But the meetings may be overshadowed by a deep government crisis in France.
Prime Minister François Bayrou has called a vote of confidence in parliament on September 8.
The government is expected to fall, and new elections cannot be ruled out. Although the crisis does not directly affect the presidency, it weakens Macron.
Merz and his German ministers will therefore be negotiating on Friday with a French Cabinet whose tenure remains uncertain.
The presidents of Russia and Ukraine may finally meet to discuss peace after 3½ years of war, President Trump said Monday, hosting European leaders at the White House in a push to resolve the conflict.
But it is unclear whether the Kremlin has agreed to the proposal, telling reporters only that Russian President Vladimir Putin would consider “raising the level” of negotiations between Russia’s and Ukraine’s representatives.
Trump proposed that Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meet one-on-one “at a location to be determined,” taking a call with the Russian leader in the middle of a high-stakes meeting with Zelensky and his European counterparts.
“After that meeting takes place, we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus myself,” Trump wrote on social media. “Again, this was a very good, early step for a War that has been going on for almost four years.”
The president’s statement came after European leaders urged Trump to “put pressure” on Russia, after his meeting with Putin in Alaska last week sparked widespread fears over the fate of U.S. support for security on the continent.
The meeting had a historic flavor, with six European heads of government, the NATO secretary general and the president of the European Commission all converging on Washington for discussions with the president.
Trump first met with Zelensky in the Oval Office, striking an affable tone after their last, disastrous meeting in the room in February. This time, Trump emphasized his “love” for the Ukrainian people and his commitment to provide security guarantees for Kyiv in an ultimate peace settlement with Russia.
Zelensky offered only praise and gratitude to Trump, telling reporters that they had their “best” meeting yet.
But an expanded meeting with Zelensky and the chancellor of Germany, the presidents of France and Finland, the prime ministers of the United Kingdom and Italy, and the heads of NATO and the European Commission hinted at a more challenging road ahead for the burgeoning peace effort.
President Trump speaks to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, left foreground, as French President Emmanuel Macron listens during a meeting at the White House on Aug. 18, 2025.
(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
“The next steps ahead are the more complicated ones now,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said. “The path is open — you opened it, but now the way is open for complicated negotiations, and to be honest, we would all like to see a ceasefire, at the latest, from the next meeting on.”
“I can’t imagine the next meeting would take place without a ceasefire,” Merz added. “So let’s work on that. And let’s put pressure on Russia.”
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, sat sternly throughout the start of the meeting before echoing Merz’s call.
“Your idea to ask for a truce, a ceasefire, or at least to stop the killings,” Macron said, “is a necessity, and we all support this idea.”
Trump had been in agreement with his European counterparts on the necessity of a ceasefire for months. Zelensky first agreed to one in March. But Putin has refused, pressing Russian advantages on the battlefield, and in Anchorage on Friday, he convinced Trump to drop his calls for an immediate halt to the fighting.
“All of us would obviously prefer an immediate ceasefire while we work on a lasting peace. Maybe something like that could happen — as of this moment, it’s not happening,” Trump said at the meeting. “But President Zelensky and President Putin can talk a little bit more about that.”
“I don’t know that it’s necessary,” Trump added. “You can do it through the war. But I like the ceasefire from another standpoint — you immediately stop the killing.”
The European leaders all emphasized to Trump that they share his desire for peace. But the president of the commission, Ursula von der Leyen, called for a “just” peace, and Zelensky would not engage publicly with reporters on Putin’s central demand: a surrender of vast swaths of Ukrainian territory to Russian control.
Putin first invaded Ukraine in 2014, occupying the Crimean peninsula in a stealth operation and funding an attack on the eastern region of Donbas using proxy forces. But he launched a full-scale invasion of the entire country in 2022, leading to the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II.
In a hot mic moment, before the media were ushered out of the expanded meeting with European leaders, Trump told Macron that he believes the Russian president and former KGB officer would agree to a peace deal because of their personal relationship.
He “wants to make a deal for me,” he said, “as crazy as it sounds.”
‘Article 5-like’ guarantees
European leaders said that detailed U.S. security guarantees — for Ukraine specifically, and more broadly for Europe — were at the top of the agenda for Monday’s meetings, including the prospect of U.S. troops on the ground in Ukraine to enforce any future peace settlement.
Asked whether U.S. forces would be involved, Trump did not rule it out, stating, “We’ll be talking about that.”
“When it comes to security, there’s going to be a lot of help,” he said in the Oval Office. “It’s going to be good. They are first line of defense, because they’re there — they are Europe. But we’re going to help them out, also. We’ll be involved.”
Von der Leyen, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer praised the Trump administration for discussing what it called “Article 5-like” security guarantees for Ukraine, referencing a provision of the North Atlantic Treaty Organizaton charter that states that an attack on one member is an attack on all.
But the provision also provides countries in the alliance with broad discretion on whether to participate in a military response to an attack on a fellow member.
Starmer and Macron have expressed a willingness for months to send British and French troops to Ukraine. But the Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday that Moscow would oppose the deployment of NATO troops to the country as “provocative” and “reckless,” creating a potential rift in the negotiations.
President Trump walks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and White House protocol chief Monica Crowley in the White House on Aug. 18, 2025.
(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
Despite the gulf between Europe and Russia, Trump expressed hope throughout the day that he could schedule a trilateral meeting with Putin and Zelensky.
He planned on calling Putin shortly after European leaders left the White House, he told reporters, only to interrupt the meeting to call the Russian leader with the proposal for bilateral talks.
Trump’s team floated inviting Zelensky to attend the negotiations in Alaska on Friday, and Zelensky has said he is willing to participate in a trilateral meeting. He repeated his interest to Trump on Monday and asked him to attend.
It is unclear whether Moscow will agree to a summit involving Zelensky in any capacity. Ahead of Friday’s meeting, Russian officials said that conditions weren’t right for direct talks between Putin and the Ukrainian president. The Russian leader has repeatedly questioned Zelensky’s legitimacy and has tried to have him assassinated on numerous occasions.
Quiet on territorial ‘swaps’
In the Oval Office, a Fox News reporter asked Zelensky whether he was “prepared to keep sending Ukrainian troops to their deaths,” or whether he would “agree to redraw the maps” instead. The Ukrainian president demurred.
“We live under each day attacks,” Zelensky responded. “We need to stop this war, to stop Russia. And we need the support — American and European partners.”
Trump and his team largely adopted Putin’s position Friday that Russia should be able to keep the Ukrainian territory it has occupied by force — and possibly even more of Donetsk, which is part of the Donbas region and remains in Ukrainian control — in exchange for an end to the fighting. But European officials were silent on the idea on Monday.
The Ukrainian Constitution prohibits the concession of territory without the support of a public referendum, and polls indicate that 3 in 4 Ukrainians oppose giving up land in an attempt to end the war.
Steve Witkoff, the president’s envoy for special missions, said Sunday that Putin agreed to pass legislation through the Kremlin that would guarantee an end to wars of conquest in Ukraine, or elsewhere in Europe.
But Russia has made similar commitments before.
In 1994, the United States and Britain signed on to a agreement in Budapest with Ukraine and Russia that ostensibly guaranteed security for Kyiv and vowed to honor Ukraine’s territorial integrity. In exchange, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons.
The French presidential palace unveiled a long-awaited new government Saturday dominated by conservatives and centrists. It came more than two months after elections that produced a hung parliament and deepened political divisions as France grapples with growing financial and diplomatic challenges.
A left-wing coalition secured the most seats in June-July parliamentary elections but failed to win a majority. Student groups and activists from the hard-left France Unbowed party held protests around the country Saturday against a government they say rejects the voters’ will.
President Emmanuel Macron named conservative Michel Barnier as prime minister earlier this month even though Barnier’s Republicans party had a poor showing in the elections, and Barnier put together the government after difficult negotiations. Macron approved, and it was announced at the presidential palace.
Marine Le Pen’s far-right anti-immigration party National Rally has no seats in Barnier’s government but has enough votes in parliament to bring it down. The party won an indirect victory with the appointment of staunch conservative Bruno Retailleau as new interior minister, whose remit includes critical domestic issues like national security, immigration, and law enforcement.
The makeup and direction of France’s government is important because the country is a leading voice in EU policy, among the biggest world’s economies and a nuclear-armed, veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council.
The 39-member Cabinet includes primarily ministers from Macron’s centrist alliance and the conservative Republicans.
Jean-Noël Barrot is the new foreign minister, a centrist politician known for his work in digital transformation and European affairs. He brings extensive experience in navigating complex international issues notably within the EU.
The new finance minister is Antoine Armand, an emerging figure in French politics now tasked with steering France’s fiscal policies and managing the upcoming 2025 budget, amid pressure from Brussels to address France’s mounting debt.
Sébastien Lecornu retains his post as defense minister. He has been instrumental in bolstering France’s military capabilities, including modernizing defense systems and managing military aid to Ukraine. His leadership in defense will be crucial as France navigates its role within NATO and handles rising geopolitical tensions over the wars in Ukraine and the Mideast.
Barnier’s ability to govern effectively is already under scrutiny, with his political opponents on the left vowing to challenge him at every turn and the far right saying it will monitor the government closely.
The left-wing New Popular Front alliance surprised many by winning the most seats in the risky snap elections that Macron called in the wake of a far-right victory in the European Parliament elections in June.
But the New Popular Front was not given a chance to form a minority government, and refused to make concessions and join a more left-leaning government alliance.
Barnier, a 73-year-old political veteran known for his role as the European Union’s Brexit negotiator, is no stranger to complex political tasks. However, forming a government that can survive in such a divided parliament will test his extensive experience and political acumen.
Barnier’s first major political test will come on Oct. 1, when he is set to deliver his general policy speech to the National Assembly.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The actor in the viral music video denouncing the 2024 Olympics looks a lot like French President Emmanuel Macron. The images of rats, trash and the sewage, however, were dreamed up by artificial intelligence.
Portraying Paris as a crime-ridden cesspool, the video mocking the Games spread quickly on social media platforms like YouTube and X, helped on its way by 30,000 social media bots linked to a notorious Russian disinformation group that has set its sights on France before. Within days, the video was available in 13 languages, thanks to quick translation by AI.
“Paris, Paris, 1-2-3, go to Seine and make a pee,” taunts an AI-enhanced singer as the faux Macron actor dances in the background, seemingly a reference to water quality concerns in the Seine River where some competitions are taking place.
Moscow is making its presence felt during the Paris Games, with groups linked to Russia’s government using online disinformation and state propaganda to spread incendiary claims and attack the host country — showing how global events like the Olympics are now high-profile targets for online disinformation and propaganda.
Over the weekend, disinformation networks linked to the Kremlin seized on a divide over Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who has faced unsubstantiated questions about her gender. Baseless claims that she is a man or transgender surfaced after a controversial boxing association with Russian ties said she failed an opaque eligibility test before last year’s world boxing championships.
Russian networks amplified the debate, which quickly became a trending topic online. British news outlets, author J.K. Rowling and right-wing politicians like Donald Trump added to the deluge. At its height late last week, X users were posting about the boxer tens of thousands of times per hour, according to an analysis by PeakMetrics, a cyber firm that tracks online narratives.
The boxing group at the root of the claims — the International Boxing Association — has been permanently barred from the Olympics, has a Russian president who is an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and its biggest sponsor is the state energy company Gazprom. Questions also have surfaced about its decision to disqualify Khelif last year after she had beaten a Russian boxer.
Approving only a small number of Russian athletes to compete as neutrals and banning them from team sports following the invasion of Ukraine all but guaranteed the Kremlin’s response, said Gordon Crovitz, co-founder of NewsGuard, a firm that analyzes online misinformation. NewsGuard has tracked dozens of examples of disinformation targeting the Paris Games, including the fake music video.
Russia’s disinformation campaign targeting the Olympics stands out for its technical skill, Crovitz said.
“What’s different now is that they are perhaps the most advanced users of generative AI models for malign purposes: fake videos, fake music, fake websites,” he said.
AI can be used to create lifelike images, audio and video, rapidly translate text and generate culturally specific content that sounds and reads like it was created by a human. The once labor-intensive work of creating fake social media accounts or websites and writing conversational posts can now be done quickly and cheaply.
Another video amplified by accounts based in Russia in recent weeks claimed the CIA and U.S. State Department warned Americans not to use the Paris metro. No such warning was issued.
Russian state media has trumpeted some of the same false and misleading content. Instead of covering the athletic competitions, much of the coverage of the Olympics has focused on crime, immigration, litter and pollution.
One article in the state-run Sputnik news service summed it up: “These Paris ‘games’ sure are going swimmingly. Here’s an idea. Stop awarding the Olympics to the decadent, rotting west.”
Russia has used propaganda to disparage past Olympics, as it did when the then-Soviet Union boycotted the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. At the time, it distributed printed material to Olympic officials in Africa and Asia suggesting that non-white athletes would be hunted by racists in the U.S., according to an analysis from Microsoft Threat Intelligence, a unit within the technology company that studies malicious online actors.
Russia also has targeted past Olympic Games with cyberattacks.
“If they cannot participate in or win the Games, then they seek to undercut, defame, and degrade the international competition in the minds of participants, spectators, and global audiences,” analysts at Microsoft concluded.
A message left with the Russian government was not immediately returned on Monday.
Authorities in France have been on high alert for sabotage, cyberattacks or disinformation targeting the Games. A 40-year-old Russian man was arrested in France last month and charged with working for a foreign power to destabilize the European country ahead of the Games.
Other nations, criminal groups, extremist organizations and scam artists also are exploiting the Olympics to spread their own disinformation. Any global event like the Olympics — or a climate disaster or big election — that draws a lot of people online is likely to generate similar amounts of false and misleading claims, said Mark Calandra, executive vice president at CSC Digital Brand Services, a firm that tracks fraudulent activity online.
CSC’s researchers noticed a sharp increase in fake website domain names being registered ahead of the Olympics. In many cases, groups set up sites that appear to provide Olympic content, or sell Olympic merchandise.
Instead, they’re designed to collect information on the user. Sometimes it’s a scam artist looking to steal personal financial data. In others, the sites are used by foreign governments to collect information on Americans — or as a way to spread more disinformation.
“Bad actors look for these global events,” Calandra said. “Whether they’re positive events like the Olympics or more concerning ones, these people use everyone’s heightened awareness and interest to try to exploit them.”
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Saturday repeatedly swerved from a message focused on the economy into non sequiturs and personal attacks, including thrice declaring that he was better looking than Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump wound back and forth between hitting his points on economic policy and delivering a smattering of insults and impressions of President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron as he held a rally in northeastern Pennsylvania.
The former president has seemed to struggle to adjust to his new opponent after Democrats replaced their nominee. Over the past week, he has diverged during campaign appearances away from the policies he was billed to speak about and instead diverted to a rotation of familiar attack lines and insults.
As he attacked Democrats for inflation at the top of his speech, Trump asked his crowd of supporters, “You don’t mind if I go off teleprompter for a second, do you? Joe Biden hates her.”
Joseph Costello, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign, responded to Trump in a statement by saying, “Another rally, same old show” and that Trump “ resorts to lies, name-calling, and confused rants,” because he can’t sell his agenda.
“The more Americans hear Trump speak, the clearer the choice this November: Vice President Harris is unifying voters with her positive vision to protect our freedoms, build up the middle class, and move America forward — and Donald Trump is trying to take us backwards,” Costello said.
Trump’s rally in Wilkes-Barre was in a swath of a pivotal battleground state where he hopes conservative, white working-class voters near Biden’s hometown of Scranton will boost the Republican’s chances of winning back the White House.
His remarks Saturday came as Democrats prepare for their four-day national convention that kicks off Monday in Chicago and will mark the party’s welcoming of Harris as their nominee. Her replacement of Biden less than four months before the November election has reinvigorated Democrats and their coalition. It has also presented a new challenge for Trump.
Trump hammered Harris on the economy, associating her with the Biden administration’s inflation woes and likening her latest proposal against price gouging to measures in communist nations. Trump has said a federal ban on price gouging for groceries would lead to food shortages, rationing and hunger. On Saturday asked why she hadn’t worked to solve prices when she and Biden were sworn into office in 2021.
“Day one for Kamala was three and a half years ago. So why didn’t she do it then? So this is day 1,305,” Trump said.
To address high prices, Trump said he would sign an executive order on his first day sworn in as president “directing every cabinet secretary and agency head to use every power we have to drive prices down, but we’re going to drive them down in a capitalist way, not in a communist way,” he said.
He predicted financial ruin for the country, and Pennsylvania in particular, if Harris wins, citing her past opposition to fracking, an oil and gas extraction process commonly used in the state. Her campaign has tried to soften her stance on fracking, saying she would not ban it, even though that was her position when she was seeking the 2020 presidential nomination.
“Your state’s going to be ruined anyway. She’s totally anti-fracking,” Trump said.
What to know about the 2024 Election
But he also meandered, going from ripping the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 to doing impressions of Macron’s French accent.
Trump laced in attacks on Harris’ laugh and said she was “not a very good wordsmith” and mocked the names of the CNN anchors who moderated the debate he had with Biden in June.
When he began musing on Harris’ recent image on the cover of Time magazine, he commented on the picture’s resemblance to classic Hollywood icons Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor and then took issue with a Wall Street Journal columnist remarking earlier this month on Harris’ beauty.
“I am much better looking than her,” Trump said, drawing laughs from the crowd. “I’m a better looking person than Kamala.”
He also took issue with the way his style is typically portrayed in news reports.
“They will say he’s rambling. I don’t ramble. I’m a really smart guy,” he said.
Trump’s Saturday rally was his fifth at the arena in Wilkes-Barre, the largest city in Luzerne County, where he has had victories in the past two elections. Biden bested Trump in neighboring Lackawanna County, where the Democrat has long promoted his working-class roots in Scranton.
On Sunday, Harris plans a bus tour starting in Pittsburgh, with a stop in Rochester, a small town to the north. Trump has scheduled a visit Monday to a plant that manufactures nuclear fuel containers in York. Trump’s running mate JD Vance is expected to be in Philadelphia that day.
Some of Biden’s loyal supporters in Scranton, a former industrial city of 76,000, were upset to see party leaders put pressure on the president to step aside.
Diane Munley, 63, says she called dozens of members of Congress to vouch for Biden. Munley eventually came to terms with Biden’s decision and is now very supportive of Harris.
“I can’t deny the enthusiasm that’s been going on with this ticket right now. I am so into it,” Munley said. “It just wasn’t happening with Joe, and I couldn’t see it at the time because I was so connected to him.”
Robert A. Bridy, 64, a laborer from Shamokin, Pennsylvania, traveled on Saturday to the rally to show support for Trump. He said the election feels tight in this state and added that his union and a close friend are trying to convince him to vote for Harris and other Democrats, but he has voted for Trump since 2016.
Bridy called Trump a “working class guy like us.” Trump is a billionaire who built his fortune in real estate.
“He’s a fighter,” Bridy said. “I’d like to see the closed borders. He doesn’t mess around. He goes at it right away and takes care of business the way it should be.” ___
Price reported from New York. Associated Press writers Bill Barrow in Atlanta and Darlene Superville in Arlington, Virginia contributed to this report.
Emmanuel Macron, president of France, arrives at the Stade de France prior to the Closing Ceremony of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at the Stade de France on August 11, 2024 in Paris, France.
Tom Weller/voigt | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images
Time is running out on the so-called “Olympic political truce” declared by French President Emmanuel Macron in late July, pushing the country’s rocky political landscape back into focus.
The snap legislative election called by Macron for early July — just before Paris hosted the world’s biggest sporting event — resulted in a hung parliament, with no party or alliance securing a majority. The left-wing New Popular Front alliance won the highest number of seats and prevented a much-discussed victory for the far-right National Rally.
For the past few weeks, however, the nation has been largely united by sporting spirit.
The usual stream of squabbling from politicians across the spectrum has dried up, and a “caretaker” government has remained nominally in place. The National Assembly’s next nine-month session is not due to begin until Oct. 1.
Macron is set to remain president until his term runs out in 2027, although much of his domestic political capital has been expended after his Renaissance party’s electoral battering.
One of the key questions back on the agenda now is who Macron will appoint as the new prime minister — who leads the French government, nominates ministers and instigates legislation — after the resignation of his ally Gabriel Attal.
Macron is keeping his cards close to his chest, and has not commented on Lucie Castets, the little-known candidate nominated for the role by New Popular Front after much debate.
While theoretically free to appoint anyone to the role, and with no obligation to choose a candidate from the party with the most seats, an unpopular choice could be ousted by a vote of no confidence in parliament. Macron cannot dissolve the National Assembly and call another election for another year.
Elsa Clara Massoc, assistant professor of International Political Economy at the University of St. Gallen, said the situation was “unprecedented” and looked to be a potential “dead-end” because of the extent of division in the new parliament.
“Under the previous legislature, Macron didn’t have an absolute majority but still more than the Left today and could count on the support of Conservatives to not endure a censor motion,” she told CNBC by email.
She highlighted issues including the fact thatNew Popular Front’s 178 seats are well short of the 289 needed for a majority and its candidate Castets is likely to be rejected by other parties.
Meanwhile, Macron’s own politics and allied government have been “widely rejected by the French,” Massoc added, and no party will form an alliance with far-right National Rally. Even within the leftist grouping, parties are divided and some will refuse any sort of alliance with centrists, she said.
One outcome could see the right-wing Les Republicains willing to form a “passive majority” with the center, but the former appears reluctant to lose “what remains of its specificity,” Massoc added, and opposition in parliament would still be high.
There are further questions over how such a divided parliament will agree on any legislation, with approval of the 2025 budget looming. Even in 2022, Macron resorted to using a special constitutional power to pass the next year’s spending bill.
There is also likely to be fierce debate over how — or whether — to take action to tackle France’s huge debt pile, and whether flagship Macronist policies such as raising the national retirement age can or should be unwound.
Under the French political system, the parliament has relatively little power and between 2017 and 2022, 65% of texts adopted were laws proposed by the government rather than parliament, Massoc noted.
From a markets perspective, the French CAC 40 index has fallen over 4.5% since the result of the election on July 7. But analysts say a divided parliament could actually lead to more stability in stocks and bonds as it will likely prevent the implementation of some parties’ more populist policies.
Political parties have their sights set firmly on the 2027 presidential race — which Macron cannot run in — and very few will want to be responsible for cutting public spending in order to tackle the public deficit, Renaud Foucart, senior lecturer in economics at Lancaster University, told CNBC by phone.
For now, uncertainty reigns and Macron’s strategy appears to be to drag things out for as long as possible, he continued.
From a personal perspective, even if he is a “lame duck” leader on the home front, Macron will likely be happy taking a more international focus and continue to try to influence European politics, Foucart said.
“His project that included transforming the labor market and deregulating the economy is basically over — he did what he wanted to do,” he continued.
Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group, said in a Monday note that Macron has had both failures and successes but gained little credit for his domestic wins, including reducing high unemployment.
The left wing focuses on his lowering of taxes for the rich and “assaults on the French welfare state,” while the right wing points to high immigration numbers and the violent crime rate, he said.
Macron has also ultimately “failed to sell his vision of a stronger France in a stronger Europe to a majority of French voters,” Rahman said.
“Seven years ago, Macron pledged to lead France to a promised land beyond the sterile alternation of left and right. Instead, he has taken France into a political quicksand with no secure government, a record budget deficit, and 3 trillion [euros, or $3.28 billion] in accumulated debt,” Rahman said.
Disclosure: CNBC parent NBCUniversal owns NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics is the U.S. broadcast rights holder to all Summer and Winter Games through 2032.
