Former French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe (2017-2020), who was in power in Emmanuel Macron’s first term, stressed this Tuesday that France needs early elections to overcome one that in his opinion is weakening the country.
“We have enormous political instability and also great political concern because the French realize it. If we add to this a tense economic and, above all, budgetary situation, we have a country that is weakening,” he indicated in his participation in the closing day of the dialogue forum, promoted by the PRISA Group and inaugurated on Monday in Barcelona.
The current prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, overcame two motions of censure last Thursday thanks to the unchecking of the majority of the socialists after his promise to suspend the pension reform, but remains under pressure in the negotiation of the budgets for 2026, which began their parliamentary journey on Monday.
“The black hole in French political life is the pension system, but from there to infer that France is ungovernable is false,” Philippe stressed, but not without admitting that the country is “hardly governable” and has “shadow areas.”
For the former prime minister, “the French political system is in a situation of indeterminacy that prevents it from making any difficult decisions.”
He himself has already publicly declared himself a candidate for the 2027 presidential election. “We must stop complaining and propose a clear vision. I propose an economic reform; (…) we must recover the educational system, we must adjust the social model.”
Philippe urged to unblock the current situation of “indeterminacy” because in his opinion it is affecting the country internationally: “The French perceive it, they see it, they don’t like it. And the global and European partners don’t like it either.”
For this reason, he points out that he is not afraid to openly ask for early elections: “The President of the Republic is the perpetrator of the crisis and would have to organize early elections, not to say resign. I say this honestly and without acrimony, because I have worked with him and I have liked working with him,” he concluded.
