Macron should call an early presidential vote, says his first PM Édouard Philippe

Emmanuel Macron should appoint a Prime Minister to pass a budget, then call the first presidential elections to resolve the political crisis in France, said his first Prime Minister.

The comments of Édouard Philippe intervene after the third French Prime Minister in one year, Sébastien Lecornu, resigned on Monday after his attempt to form a government collapsed.

Macron asked him to make a last stability plan by the end of Wednesday – but support for the French President seems to decline even among his allies.

Philippe, who was a prime minister from 2017 to 20 years and now headed the Centrist horizons party, said that he was “not in favor of his immediate and brutal resignation”, but that it was up to the president at the height of his mandate.

Meanwhile, Gabriel Attal – who headed the Macron Renaissance party and was Prime Minister for six months in 2024 – went on national television on Monday evening to say that he “no longer understands the decisions made by the President of the Republic”.

The president had tried to restore control three times in the past year, said Attal, and it was now time to share power with other parties: “I think we should try something else.”

Until now, the pressure on the 47 -year -old French president has resigned has largely came from his political opponents on the more radical left and the right on the right.

The public interventions of his allies indicate how serious the political crisis has become.

Macron, who has been in office since 2017, has been captured in video on foot only by the Seine river in Paris on Monday, followed by his bodyguards, while the last crisis swirl around his presidency.

His entourage said he “assumes responsibility” if the last Lecornu talks failed, without specifying that it would mean.

Macron’s centrist block lost his parliamentary majority after calling the Snap legislative elections in response to a defeat during the European Parliament of last year.

Since then, he has struggled to pass an annual budget to reduce the country’s public debt of the country. The French budget deficit should reach 5.4% of economic production (GDP) this year.

Last month, François Bayrou resigned after losing a vote with confidence in the French Parliament when he tried to pass through swarled budget cuts. Now Lecornu, his successor, resigned after only 26 days in work, accusing “partisan appetites” among the coalition parties.

Lecornu began discussions with political leaders of the Center Ground on Tuesday morning, in order to find a way to get out of the deadlock. Philippe said that he would participate in talks, although Bruno Retailleau, right -wing Republicans, said that he would only meet Lecornu.

“It is clear that we are today in the midst of a political crisis that consecrates and worries our fellow citizens,” Philippe told RTL Radio. “This political crisis leads to the decline of the State … The authority and the continuity of the State are not respected.”

Philippe, whose Horizons party has been part of Macron’s government throughout its second presidential term, rejected calls from political opponents to the president’s immediate resignation – but said that it was Macron himself to find a solution.

“(Immediate resignation) would have a terrible impact and prevent a presidential election in good conditions,” he told RTL on Tuesday.

However, he argued that Macron should avoid the crisis by appointing a Prime Minister who could put a budget, guarantee the continuous operation of the State and start in “orderly”.

“When you are head of state, you do not use the institutions, you serve them – and he should serve institutions by finding a solution to this political crisis.”

Macron’s survey notes have dived in recent months and a survey of 1,000 French people conducted for the newspaper Le Figaro suggested that 53% of them thought he had to withdraw.

Meanwhile, a van caught fire in the same street as the Prime Minister’s residence on the rue de Varenne on Tuesday morning, in what the commentators suggested was symbolic of the continuous political crisis.