The Prime Minister comes from a political party, the LR, which only won 46 seats in the parliamentary elections. He was chosen directly by the president (after weeks of ‘consultations’, which he himself personally led). His election is not the result of a post-election agreement between a coalition of parties. With his election, President Macron reaffirms three dynamics inherent to the system of the Fifth Republic: the marginalisation of political parties in the process of forming a government; the absolute centrality of the president in the political leadership of the state; the greater importance of presidential elections compared to legislative elections. This last point is confirmed by the general attitude of the various party leaders who have lost the battle for the prime ministerial nomination and are now focussing their energies on the upcoming presidential campaign. However, the unprecedented situation we have just witnessed will certainly leave its mark, not to mention the fact that it is not yet finalised. Michel Barnier must now form a government that can find the consensus of at least a relative majority in Parliament. It will be interesting to see whether the new Prime Minister decides to resort to a vote of confidence in Parliament.n elitist, selfish and thereby destructive system.

Legally, he is not obliged to do so, but if he does, voters can better understand which government coalition has been formed with which political programme. Moreover, the life of such a government could prove to be short and turbulent. It is a government that suffers from a significant lack of democratic legitimacy. While its government is formed in accordance with constitutional rules, what confidence can citizens have in institutions that (for once!) turned out in droves to vote in parliamentary elections and are then likely to face a government that inadequately reflects the majority of votes cast?

We must therefore prepare ourselves for a very lively institutional phase: Proposals for motions of censure, mechanisms to ‘force’ the passage of legislative texts, such as the 49.3 and the blocked vote, constant negotiations by the government to avoid being overthrown, a possible dissolution after the next presidential elections... But what is perhaps even more worrying are the political and social consequences. The tendencies towards polarisation and the rise of extremes will only be reinforced, the citizens' distrust of politics will only increase and the crisis of democratic culture will only deepen.