Who’s in Paris? France Faces Looming Debt Crisis, Political Chaos

France can’t get its act together, and it doesn’t look to be getting any better.

In the two weeks far-right National Rally leader Jordan Bardella called “an unbearable national humiliation,” French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu was forced to resign and was reappointed as French President Emmanuel Macron’s sixth prime minister in three years. The rigamarole that has consumed the position with the jurisdiction over France’s domestic affairs

has endangered France’s ability to pass a budget. The chaos has also caused the S&P to downgrade the economy of the European Union’s second largest economy.

The debate has revolved around France’s serious debt problems. At the end of the first quarter of 2025, France had a public debt of 3.346 trillion euros ($3.9 trillion). According to NPR, that’s 114% of France’s gross domestic product. The interest alone... To combat this, Macron’s Ensemble party has pitched reforming the French pension system, something parties on the left and right see as a non-starter.

The French government system features both a parliamentary system primarily charged with domestic affairs and a president who has control over defense and foreign affairs. Since losing his majority in 2022, Macron’s Ensemble party has faced difficulty passing legislation. Macron attempted to gain more seats in 2024, but ended up hemorrhaging seats to the far-right National Rally and a myriad of left-wing parties. The political situation and discourse has gotten so raucous that some French politicians think they need to throw out the current constitution and start anew.

Now, Macron is in a position where he has to rely on an archaic constitutional provision (Article 49.3) to pass legislation without a majority. The catch — the only way to stop it is by forcing a vote of no confidence on the government.

Everybody is fine with that.

And so the government continues to fall. One after another, a prime minister tries to pass a budget, cannot garner a majority, attempts to pass it via Section 49.3, and is kicked out or resigns.

The pattern does not look to be letting up.

If France can’t get it together, it looks quite bad. France’s 114% debt-to-GDP ratio is only surpassed by Greece (famous for its “incredible economy”) and Italy which is still recovering from the ravaging aftermath of COVID-19. While the country is not at immediate risk of economic collapse, their ability to borrow could be seriously impacted by the news of their political chaos. The scariest scenario is a doom spiral where France’s borrowing ability is seriously hampered which leads to the necessity of more unpopular austerity proposals which leads to more political chaos which leads to further reductions in France’s borrowing ability. The country also risks a fine of 1.5 billion euros from the European Union, as the bloc fines countries for having too much debt.

All in all, France faces an existential economic crisis buoyed by an underlying political crisis and there looks to be no way out.