Constitutional scholar Jean‑Philippe Derosier sees no quick fix as a confidence vote threatens François Bayrou’s government and Emmanuel Macron’s minority presidency staggers on

PARIS – In the hours before a make‑or‑break confidence vote in the National Assembly, French constitutional law professor Jean‑Philippe Derosier offers a stark diagnosis: the country’s institutional fever won’t break quickly. “The crisis will end when there is a change at the Élysée,” the University of Lille scholar argues—meaning not with the fall of yet another prime minister, but only when voters choose a different president. Until then, he says, France is stuck with a Parliament that won’t align behind a governing project and a presidency that has neither the numbers nor the leverage to impose one.

Derosier’s assessment lands as Prime Minister François Bayrou—appointed nine months ago to steady the ship—faces near‑certain defeat in a confidence vote he called to rally support for a sweeping austerity program. The plan, designed to close a yawning deficit and stabilize a debt load north of 110% of GDP, proposes roughly €44 billion in savings and even scrapping two public holidays. It has united the far left and the far right in opposition and left centrists struggling to explain why a minority government should be trusted to pass a painful budget without a durable deal in Parliament.

France has been living in political twilight since President Emmanuel Macron dissolved the National Assembly in June 2024, a gamble intended to regain momentum after a drubbing in the European elections. Instead, the snap vote fractured the chamber into three blocs—left‑wing, far‑right and centrist—none with a majority. Since then, prime ministers have come and gone while the fundamentals have not changed: the Élysée can name a head of government, but the Assembly can bring that government down. In this stalemate, each legislative cliff—most notably the budget—becomes a test of survival rather than a moment for policy‑making.

Derosier’s point is not partisan; it is structural. Under the Fifth Republic, power is meant to be clarified by elections that produce a presidential majority. When the executive and the Assembly are out of sync, the Constitution still offers tools—confidence votes, Article 49.3 to force bills through, even dissolution. Yet these instruments can only manage time, not manufacture consensus. A dissolution already tried and failed. Another remains legally possible, but politically risky: it could just as easily deliver a stronger far‑right plurality as a workable coalition. “What the system lacks is a shared direction,” Derosier notes. “Without it, procedure is a bandage, not a cure.”

The immediate question is whether Bayrou falls—and what comes after. One scenario is musical chairs at Matignon: replace the prime minister, alter the tone, trim the fiscal package, and try again. Allies whisper about a centrist‑left “contract” government anchored by moderate Socialists willing to trade targeted budget savings for social protections and public‑investment exceptions. Another scenario is an explicitly technical cabinet tasked with passing a stop‑gap budget and managing day‑to‑day affairs while parties keep one eye on the 2027 presidential race. A third, most explosive option is to dissolve the Assembly once more and ask voters to arbitrate a feud that the political class cannot resolve on its own.

Each path has thorns. A new prime minister without new numbers would inherit the same math and the same sword of Damocles. A technical cabinet could satisfy no one and run on borrowed time. A fresh vote could turbocharge Marine Le Pen’s National Rally or hand the left a fragile lead, either way preserving the logic of stalemate. Bayrou’s defeat—should it come—would be dramatic, but it would not answer the question that has haunted Paris since last summer: who can govern France when majorities have become mirages?

Behind the daily drama lies an uncomfortable economic ledger. France’s deficit remains stubbornly high; borrowing costs have crept up; and markets have begun to price political risk into the country’s sovereign debt. The government’s proposed cuts target everything from welfare payments to public holidays, and whisper campaigns about tax rises are never far away. The left calls the package socially unjust and economically myopic; the far right brands it technocratic hair‑shirt liberalism. The center replies that arithmetic is not ideological. In such conditions, even modest compromise costs political capital that few are willing to spend.

This is why Derosier insists on the horizon of the presidency. Under France’s semi‑presidential architecture, the presidency gives coherence to the mandate: voters choose a leader, and then, usually, they ratify that choice in legislative elections that deliver a working majority. When that sequence misfires, the regime can function, sometimes surprisingly well, but it lurches rather than leads. “The institutions are resilient,” he says, “yet they are not magical. They cannot conjure agreement where none exists.” The clearest reset would be a presidential election that realigns incentives and clarifies authority. That will not happen before 2027, barring an extraordinary twist that no serious observer expects.

Macron, for his part, has vowed to serve out his mandate. He has also ruled little out in the hunt for a path forward—dialogue with moderate Socialists, tactical retreats on spending, and calibrated use of constitutional levers. But the room for maneuver is narrow. Each concession risks alienating another flank; each show of force courts backlash in a chamber primed to punish presidential overreach. The result is a politics of attrition, with the executive trying to scrape together majorities bill by bill while opponents wait for momentum to shift their way.

Could France be heading back to the unstable carousel of the Fourth Republic? Not quite. The Fifth Republic’s guardrails—the presidency’s fixed term, the ability to test and topple governments, the option (however perilous) of dissolution—contain crises that once would have spun out. But guardrails do not determine direction. The broader story is less about institutional collapse than about a fragmented electorate that has turned parliament into a mirror of a country divided over identity, economic risk, and France’s place in Europe. Until one camp can articulate a coalition‑sized answer to those questions, the Assembly will remain a hung jury.

Seen from Europe’s capitals, this uncertainty is not merely French theatre. Paris anchors key debates on fiscal rules, industrial policy, and defense. A distracted, weakened France complicates everything from euro‑zone coordination to support for Ukraine and the Middle East peace track. Businesses mulling investments in France are weighing an attractive talent base and state support against the prospect of policy zigzags. The risk is not an acute crisis, but chronic fatigue: a great power treading water when it needs to swim.

And so back to Derosier’s bleak clarity. “I don’t think political instability can be resolved quickly,” he says. The constitution can referee; it cannot substitute for consent. If there is a route out, it likely runs through the same place the crisis began: the ballot box that chooses the president, and with it, a legislative majority. “The Élysée is where French politics regains coherence,” Derosier adds. “Until it changes hands—or a new majority forms around it—France will continue to oscillate between survival and stalemate.” That is not a prediction of collapse. It is a reminder that the Fifth Republic’s promise has always rested on a simple bargain: clarity of leadership in exchange for responsibility to govern. Today, France has too little of both.

For now, what matters is whether the National Assembly chooses to deliver another shock by ejecting Bayrou, and whether the president can then stitch together a governing arrangement that lasts long enough to pass a budget without detonating his own coalition. Whatever the outcome, the constitutionalist from Lille would sound the same note: until the center of gravity moves at the Élysée—or until voters move it there—the fever will break and rise, break and rise, in a country that knows how to live with crises but not how to end them.

Sources

Anais Ginori, “Francia, il costituzionalista Derosier: ‘La crisi finirà quando ci sarà un cambio all’Eliseo’,” La Repubblica, Sept. 8, 2025.

AP News, “France faces more political upheaval as prime minister’s fate hangs in the balance,” Sept. 8, 2025.

Reuters, “France faces more turmoil with government on brink ahead of confidence vote,” Sept. 8, 2025.

France 24, Live coverage: “French PM François Bayrou on the brink in crucial confidence vote,” Sept. 8, 2025.

Financial Times, “French PM François Bayrou on the brink in crucial confidence vote,” Sept. 8, 2025.

Elysée, Constitution of 4 October 1958, Article 12 (dissolution of the National Assembly).