France’s Domestic Instability Has Weakened Its Diplomatic Clout

No matter how elegant the performance of a country’s leader on the world stage, domestic instability still diminishes its global influence.

President Emmanuel Macron of France has shown he is one of Europe’s most decisive and vibrant leaders, but his inability to find a government that can deal with spiraling debt and political division is undercutting his credibility as an international actor of consequence.

Mr. Macron, deeply unpopular at home, is seeking to form a sixth government in the past 21 months, still hoping to find a prime minister who can cobble together support in a Parliament split at least three ways, with no faction able to command a stable majority. He was expected to appoint his choice for the role on Friday.

“Domestic instability undermines credibility even if foreign-policy competence lies with the president,” said Daniela Schwarzer, an expert in Franco-German relations and a member of the executive board of the Bertelsmann Foundation, a nonprofit institute. “Because as soon as it’s about money, it depends on the Parliament and on the budget,” over which Mr. Macron has no direct control, she said.

A paralyzed Paris erodes Europe’s strategic weight and ability to make decisions, especially on rearmament. Mr. Macron may promise more money for the military in any new French budget, as he did this summer, but it is France’s Parliament that controls the funds, making his efforts to respond to a newly aggressive Russia seem hollow.

“Without a government and a budget, it’s hard to convince others or share the burden,” Ms. Schwarzer said.

Europe is confronting major challenges and would benefit from the leadership role that France has traditionally played, noted Rym Momtaz, the editor of Carnegie Europe’s blog, Strategic Europe. Russia has heightened its hybrid efforts to intimidate Europe, sending aircraft into the airspaces of Poland, Estonia and Romania in recent weeks, and the United States has wavered in its support of Ukraine.

Germans express disappointment that France is so divided just as its heft and resources are most needed in the European Union, NATO and Ukraine. The so-called Franco-German economic and political motor that long drove European policy has been stuttering for some time, with blame on both sides. Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany and Mr. Macron tried to revitalize it in August, with proposals for new cooperation in security, defense and energy. But it has stalled.

The divided French Parliament is itself a function of Mr. Macron’s decision to call early elections in June 2024 after the far right did well in European elections. That legally unnecessary move produced the three-way split that leaves no faction with a working majority, especially as both the left and the center-right parties are themselves divided.

With the growing popularity of the far-right National Rally party of Marine Le Pen, France is now a democracy in which many fear another election. Europe needs “to prepare now for the strong possibility that France could soon elect a far-right, Euroskeptic president,” said Fabian Zuleeg, the chief executive of the European Policy Center in Brussels.

Both the National Rally and the farther-left party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, France Unbowed, are eager for new elections, which Mr. Macron wants to avoid. Both parties have strong connections to Russia and would be likely to do well in new legislative elections, making Mr. Macron’s position even worse. And Ms. Le Pen or her protégé, Jordan Bardella, have an excellent chance of winning the presidency in a year. They are pressing Mr. Macron to resign now, which he is considered highly unlikely to do.

France’s high debt and already overstretched budget are shared to varying degrees by other key European countries, except for Germany. President Trump’s vow to spend no more money on Ukraine means that European countries must make up the difference. And that has prompted the European Commission in Brussels to explore legal workarounds to use the billions of dollars in frozen Russian assets to create a long-term loan for Ukraine, so that national budgets are spared.

But that effort is opposed by Belgium, where most of the assets are stored and which fears future liability, and by the European Central Bank, which fears a bad legal precedent and a negative impact on the euro.

Mr. Macron retains high energy and remains, as Ms. Momtaz once called him, Europe’s “think-tanker in chief.” He has been instrumental, for example, in working with Saudi Arabia to revive the idea of a two-state solution in the Middle East and to recognize an independent Palestine. But symbolism is not enough in a world of transactional politics and hard power.

Europe has been adjusting to French weakness since Mr. Macron’s gamble on new legislative elections went wrong, said Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. For example, with European worries about both Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain has found it easier to have some influence in Europe post-Brexit. He has worked with Mr. Macron to create a so-called coalition of the willing outside the structures of the European Union where Britain, France, Germany, Poland and Finland can work on defense and security issues, like Ukraine.

“But on Ukraine, money matters,” Mr. Leonard said. Though Mr. Macron has been bold and forward-leaning on Ukraine, “that has been partly a placebo for lack of French resources,” which have been quite modest in comparison with Germany’s assistance, he said. “Macron has had an important impact on policy, but we’ve seen the limits now.”