PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron of France faced deepening pressure on Tuesday to hold a snap parliamentary election or even resign to end political chaos in the euro zone’s second biggest economy that has forced the resignation of five prime ministers in less than two years.

The 47-year-old president, who was seen this week wandering alone beside the river Seine deep in thought, has repeatedly said he will see out his second term, which ends in 2027.

But resignation calls, long confined to the fringes, have entered the mainstream during one of the worst political crises since the 1958 creation of the Fifth Republic, France’s current system of government.

On Tuesday, as Macron’s outgoing Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu held last-ditch talks to form a new government, his first premier in 2017, Edouard Philippe, said it was time for a new president to break the deadlock.

“He must now address this dereliction of the state, take a decision commensurate with his function and, in my view, that’s guaranteeing the continuity of our institutions by leaving in an orderly manner,” he told RTL radio.

Allies round on Macron

Philippe, whom polls show to be the best-placed candidate to lead the political centre in a succession battle, was the second of Macron’s former prime ministers to distance themselves from him in as many days.

Gabriel Attal, another erstwhile Macron loyalist, was blunt in his criticism. He was prime minister for a few months last year before Macron called a snap vote that delivered a hung parliament with three ideologically opposed blocs.

“Like many French people, I no longer understand the president’s decisions,” he said on the TF1 news channel, after Macron asked Lecornu, who had just tendered his resignation, to go back to opponents for last-gasp talks.

Lecornu, whose 14-hour-old administration was the shortest in modern French history, was given two days to find consensus.

Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2025