Emmanuel Macron's joy over the upcoming adoption of the 2026 budget will be short-lived.
Once the budget is approved, the French leader will have until spring of next year, when the presidential elections will be held, a president without real power.
Current and former ministers, lawmakers and political advisers — including three of Macron's allies — tell POLITICO that now that the budget fight is over and the concerns of angry citizens and nervous markets have been calmed, the entire political cycle in France will shift into election campaign mode at the expense of the dirty work of legislating.
They will take place first local elections. Voters in over 35 thousand municipalities will vote next month for mayors and city councils. Then all attention will turn to the presidential race. Macron cannot run again due to term limits. Polls indicate that his place may be taken by a candidate of the far-right National Rally.
– This end of term [Macrona] — this is how a former advisor close to Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu comments on the adoption of the budget.
Gabriel Attal, Macron's former prime minister who now leads the French president's party, confirmed in an interview with French media last month that he had told his supporters that the budget marked the “end” of Macron's second term. “I stand by what I said,” Attal said in an interview with FranceInfo.
Government crisis
As president, Macron continues to exert a strong influence influence on foreign affairs and defensetwo areas that will allow him to remain on the international arena, given the geopolitical turmoil caused by the second term of US President Donald Trump.
However, the situation in the country is made more difficult by early elections in 2024, which led to the creation of a parliament without a majority.
Lecornu escaped overthrow over the passage of the budget thanks to his political acumen, sure compromises and some brave decisions. These included halting Macron's flagship pension reform, which raised the retirement age, and reneging on a promise not to use a constitutional loophole to push through the idea without a vote.
— Lecornu was smart enough to get the budget passed and end his term in style. This is commendable considering that [byli premierzy Michel] Barnier i [Francois] Bayrou failed to do this, and he achieved it thanks to considerable skill, says one ministerial adviser who, like others quoted in the article, asked to remain anonymous to speak honestly.
But Lecorn's decision to prioritize non-controversial measures in the coming weeks highlights the difficulties ahead.
French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, January 20, 2026Eric Beracassat/Getty Images
These priorities include defining the division of powers between central and local governments and streamlining and centralizing the payment of social benefits, which are currently granted on an ad hoc basis. Lecornu also plans to start work early on France's 2027 fiscal plans to prevent a third consecutive budget crisis.
Fight for the office of president
— Presidential elections will be held in 2027. Before that, we need to agree on the basic assumptions that will allow the country to move forward, government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon said on Sud Radio on Thursday.
Lecornu has repeatedly stressed that his people should be separated from the presidential race. The Prime Minister blames “party appetites” for both the budget crisis and the collapse of his government, which was eventually replaced by less ambitious ministers after 14 hours.
Ironically, however, some French government officials and MPs now claim that the self-proclaimed warrior prime minister was able to jump into the ranks thanks to his budget victory. presidential candidates.
Mathieu Gallard, a pollster from Ipsos, says Lecornu has clearly become a more viable presidential candidate. At the same time, he notes that the transition from the position of prime minister to the position of president “is always a difficult task.”
One parliamentary leader is much less optimistic. He argues that the same “partisan appetites” that Lecornu has long warned against will likely cost him his job before voters head to the polls to choose Macron's successor.
— [Lecornu] has few friends. And now that the budget has been passed, any political group can have fun removing him from office to signal their ambitions before the next presidential election, the source said.
