Macron to Le Pen: I’m not going anywhere

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron pushed back forcefully against calls for his resignation during a televised address on Thursday, a day after his prime minister was toppled in a historic no-confidence vote in parliament that has plunged France into a deepening political crisis.

The French president used his first comments since the vote to turn the heat on “the extremes” — the far-right National Rally and the far-left France Unbowed party — for joining forces in what he called “an anti-Republican front” to oust Michel Barnier.

“They aren’t thinking about you, your difficulties, and your lives,” Macron said. “They are thinking about one single thing: the presidential election, [how to] prepare it, accelerate it, with cynicism if necessary and a taste for chaos.”

Barnier’s government, which lasted just under three months, collapsed following the conservative grandee’s attempt to push through an austere budget meant to reassure investors and bring down France’s ballooning deficit.

The political chaos, and the dim prospects of an immediate resolution, has led a growing number of lawmakers to demand the resignation of the French president, whose term lasts until 2027.

During an interview shortly after Macron’s speech, far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon said the French president’s days were numbered and that Macron was “the cause of the problem.”

“Events will force him out,” Mélenchon said.

Macron, in his address, made it clear he was planning to stay, hammering home that he was “democratically elected” and intends to rule “fully” to the end of his term.

“My responsibility is to make sure our institutions work … and to protect everyone. I have been by your side since the beginning, through social upheaval, the Covid epidemic and the return of war [to Europe],” he said.

While the French president did not mention her by name, much of Macron’s ire was aimed at Le Pen, whom he defeated in both of his presidential campaigns, along with her fellow National Rally lawmakers.

“They did this not to achieve something but to unravel, and to sow disorder,” he said.

Macron said he would appoint a new prime minister “in the coming days” who would “form a government in the general interest.” Pushing back against fears that the country had become rudderless, Macron said the newly-appointed government would put forward “special legislation” to avoid a U.S.-style government shutdown by mid-December, and submit a new 2025 budget bill next month.

Names for a new prime minister are already swirling in the French press, and include those of Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, and top Macron ally François Bayrou.