Shortly after French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu resigned less than a month into the job, President Emmanuel Macron was seen walking by the River Seine in Paris, deep in a phone conversation, with only his security detail at a discreet distance. Whom Macron was speaking to and what he was discussing remain unclear. But the image symbolized the president&rsquo;s growing political isolation as he faces a dwindling set of options &mdash; all of them fraught with risk. With his second and final presidential term set to end in 2027, analysts say Macron has four possible courses of action. None offers an easy solution. Reappoint Lecornu Macron appears to have kept this option open after Bruno Le Maire &mdash; the loyal former finance minister whose appointment as defense minister triggered the crisis &mdash; announced his intention to withdraw from the government. The Elysee Palace then announced that Lecornu had been given two days to present an action plan, with the prime minister saying he would hold &ldquo;final discussions&rdquo; with &ldquo;all the political forces.&rdquo; However, it remains uncertain whether Lecornu can form a government, let alone survive a confidence vote in parliament, where his allies are in the minority. Even if successful, his reappointment would not be automatic, a French presidential official said. &ldquo;The fundamentals of the problem remain the same: with or without Le Maire, the other parliamentary blocs don&rsquo;t agree on the budget, pension reform, immigration, and so forth,&rdquo; said Paul Taylor, senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre. A new prime minister If Macron appoints a new prime minister, it would mark the eighth of his presidency and the third this year &mdash; hardly a sign of stability. The left has demanded that he name someone who would back a more expansionary budget, but it is unclear if Macron would do so. Even then, the new premier might not enjoy broad support across the divided left. &ldquo;Another PM could be toppled within weeks &mdash; making a new legislative election almost inevitable,&rdquo; said the Eurasia Group risk analysis firm. Early elections Macron has long resisted calling early elections after his gamble on snap polls in summer 2024 backfired, leaving France with a hung parliament. Yet, a presidential official said Macron would &ldquo;assume his responsibilities&rdquo; if Lecornu fails in the coming days &mdash; a comment widely interpreted as a signal he may dissolve parliament. Such elections could boost the far-right National Rally of Marine Le Pen, potentially giving her prot&eacute;g&eacute; Jordan Bardella a path to the premiership. Still, the outcome remains uncertain. &ldquo;It is unclear whether new elections would produce a different result than the one from last July,&rdquo; said Celia Belin, head of the Paris office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. Resignation Macron has repeatedly dismissed the idea of resigning before his term ends, which would trigger an early presidential election. But pressure on him is mounting. &ldquo;If new snap elections do not allow for a governing majority, the political crisis could turn into a regime crisis. In that case, President Macron&rsquo;s ability to stay in power could be questioned,&rdquo; Belin said.

French outgoing Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, who resigned just a day after naming his government, delivers his statement at the Hotel Matignon in Paris, Monday, Oct. 6, 2025. (Stephane Mahe/Pool via AP)

Europe

France faces political uncertainty after Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu’s resignation. President Emmanuel Macron must decide between reappointing him, naming a new premier, or calling early elections as parliamentary deadlock continues.

Macron's dilemma: What next for France after PM resigns?

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has returned to the forefront of Middle East peace efforts&nbsp;after a US peace plan on ending the Israel-Hamas war cast him in a leading role in overseeing the post-war administration and reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. It&rsquo;s familiar territory for Blair, who spent eight years working to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians as the international community&rsquo;s envoy to the Middle East.His decision to step down in 2015 was seen as a reflection of the dire state of Mideast peace efforts that devolved further under the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The US proposal &mdash; which President Donald Trump and Netanyahu said they agreed on after talks at the White House on Monday &mdash; would put Gaza&rsquo;s territory and its more than 2 million people effectively under international control, deploying an international security force and installing a &ldquo;Board of Peace&rdquo; headed by Trump and Blair to oversee the administration and reconstruction. Hamas said Tuesday it would study the plan, both within the group and with other Palestinian factions, before responding.<h3 style="line-height: 2;"> </h3><h3 style="line-height: 2;">Legacy of the war in Iraq</h3>Blair has decades of experience in the Middle East. For some, that&rsquo;s his great strength &mdash; and for others, his huge weakness. As prime minister between 1997 and 2007, he took the United Kingdom into the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 despite strong public opposition. The subsequent conflict killed 179 British troops, some 4,500 American personnel, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. A public inquiry concluded in 2016 that Blair took the country to war based on flawed intelligence and &ldquo;before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted.&rdquo; But it did not say that the war was illegal, which could have opened the way for Blair to be prosecuted for war crimes. Blair has defended his decision to go to war, saying he did it in good faith, believing that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.<h3 style="line-height: 2;"> </h3><h3 style="line-height: 2;">Mideast diplomatic role</h3>After leaving office in 2007, Blair was appointed Middle East envoy by the &ldquo;Quartet&rdquo; &mdash; the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations &mdash; a post that began with great promise but struggled to deliver dramatic changes in its quest to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Blair&rsquo;s experience in British politics and name recognition offered hope that he had the charisma and connections that might bring progress. But his work became mired in skirmishes over issues such as the movement of Palestinian goods and people in the West Bank, and dealing with the difficulties of a Gaza Strip ruled by the militant Hamas group and blockaded by Israel and Egypt. &ldquo;Well, he was a colossal failure in the many years that he was the special envoy of the Quartet,&rdquo; said Nomi Bar-Yaacov, a Mideast expert at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. &ldquo;They didn&rsquo;t achieve much.&rdquo; Blair quit in 2015 with little to show in the way of progress toward a Palestinian state. That was long before the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel ignited the latest war and further poisoned hopes for peace and stability. Recently, Blair has been part of high-level planning talks with the US and others about the future of Gaza. In a statement, Blair said Trump&rsquo;s &ldquo;bold and intelligent&rdquo; plan offers &ldquo;the best chance&rdquo; of ending the Gaza war. He did not mention his own potential role.<h3 style="line-height: 2;"> </h3><h3 style="line-height: 2;">A contentious politician</h3>UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Trump&rsquo;s announcement of a peace plan was &ldquo;profoundly welcome&rdquo; and called &ldquo;on all sides to come together and to work with the US administration to finalize this agreement and bring it into reality.&rdquo; He didn&rsquo;t mention Blair&rsquo;s potential involvement. Blair remains a divisive figure in the Labour Party, praised by some for winning three consecutive elections but forever tarnished in the eyes of others because of the war.Health Secretary Wes Streeting acknowledged that &ldquo;there&rsquo;ll be some people who look at Tony Blair and his legacy in Iraq and will raise eyebrows, to say the least, about whether he&rsquo;s the right man to be involved in this.&rdquo; But he noted that Blair played a key role in ending decades of violence in Northern Ireland with the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement &mdash; experience that could prove essential in the Middle East. Michael Stephens, an international security expert at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, said that Blair being given a role in a transitional Gaza authority &ldquo;has rings of 2003 about it, so it feels uncomfortable. &ldquo;But if it brings a ceasefire, it may not be the worst option,&rdquo; he said. War-weary Palestinians from Gaza expressed little enthusiasm for Blair. &ldquo;Blair is rejected by the people,&rdquo; said Hussein Dhaher, a displaced man from Gaza&rsquo;s northern town of Beit Hanoun. &ldquo;This man has the blood of Iraqis on his hands. He only brings ruin and destruction.&rdquo; Umm Mohammed, a history teacher who shelters with her family in Gaza City, wondered why a Palestinian leader could not have been found instead of Blair. &ldquo;This man is hated in the region because of his role in destroying Iraq, and he won&rsquo;t bring anything good to us Palestinians,&rdquo; she said.

Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair walks through the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Sunday, Dec. 3, 2023

Middle East

United Kingdom

Americas

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has returned to the forefront of Middle East peace efforts after a U.S. peace plan on ending the Israel-Hamas war cast him in a leading role in overseeing the post-war administration and reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.

Articles tagged with "Prime Minister"

Macron's dilemma: What next for France after PM resigns?

Tony Blair joins Trump-chaired Board of Peace for Gaza plan