At the time of writing (10 October 2025), the situation is basically the same as it has been since 7 July 2024: that is, France has no de facto government.

No one has ever quite understood what went through Manu ‘s brain on the evening of the European elections on 9 June 2024, a gesture of annoyance at the RN’s victory, a poker player’s gamble, but the result was nothing short of catastrophic: ‘la ruine de la France‘ stigmatised Le Figaro yesterday morning.

Mistakes or horrors that have created a snowball effect: the sacrifice of Attal, a capable politician and his loyalist, who, moreover, had enough numbers not to be censured*, the desistance mess that then massacred his own and favoured the left, including Mélanchon’s LFI, the absolute ungovernability that is crashing the entire system of the Fifth Republic, which seemed granitic.

Manu tried three times (more or less) but always without conviction and without putting his face to it. Three photocopied prime ministers with three photocopied governments, although the last one has not even arrived, that never stood a chance. Not least because the crisis, despite the fact that it was evidently very serious, was managed with incomprehensible detachment and arrogance first and foremost by himself.

But it must also be said that he is not entirely to blame, the whole of French politics and perhaps the whole of society is in a major identity crisis and has been unable to come up with concrete ideas to manage the crisis.

The parties – just think of the names: we still have the PCF around – are steeped in maximalism, they still think as they did in the 1980s and as if France were outside the laws of the market. Despite the clearly very serious situation in all respects, they have not been able to find a solution to save the country. Just to make a comparison, in Italy (it is true that compromise is a religion here) they managed to get the Lega and M5S to govern together…

And the French themselves, accustomed for decades to living with a greedy and costly but also paternalistic and welfarist state, have since the system started beating about the bush started to lose their bearings and perhaps their contact with reality. See the discussion and reactions on the pension referendum.

What now? Despite Manu’s attempt to buy time I do not see, and I would say no one sees, any great alternative to new elections. The question is whether only legislative or also presidential, as called for by former crony Éduard Philippe, who now seems the strongest centrist candidate. Of course, the same polls show the RN as the party’s overwhelming favourite and Bardela as the presidential candidate (given that Marine Le Pen is ineligible), so the problem would arise again exactly as it did in 2024, as more and more French people no longer know which way to turn and will try the sovereignist card. A perhaps desperate card, because apart from the issue of immigration, the RN has never expressed great ideas and programmes on the key problems that the future government will have to face, apart from the well-known and questionable positions on international politics and Europe.

But is it sensible, to continue making walls and tricks, moreover self-defeating, towards a party that is likely to have more than 35% of the votes? Or should we put it to the test and ‘channel’ the energies it represents to try to rebuild new balances? Around this question revolves the future of France and perhaps of Europe.

* in France, the government does not have to have confidence but avoid having no confidence, which is called censure and requires a minimum number of votes in favour.