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Paul Maurice
Secretary General of the Study Committee on Franco-German Relations, Institut Français des Relations Internationales (IFRI)
The French political crisis weakens the EU's strategic cohesion as it disrupts the Franco-German relationship, recently revitalized by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron. The Franco-German Council of Ministers held in Toulon at the end of August set in motion numerous concrete projects for the future of Europe and its geopolitical priorities: security, defense, energy, enlargement, and strategic autonomy. Yet paralysis in Paris deprives Berlin of a partner capable of making decisive strategic choices.
Facing the war in Ukraine, an aggressive Russia, an assertive China, and a less reliable United States, Europe needs a functional Franco-German partnership to maintain a coherent diplomatic line. Without political stability in Paris, joint initiatives—such as the Franco-German Defense and Security Council or major European industrial programs (including the Future Combat Air System and Main Ground Combat System)—risk stagnating.
Berlin could find itself compelled to act alone or seek other alliances, thereby weakening the EU's collective ability to speak with one voice.
The strategic bilateral treaties Paris concluded with Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, and the United Kingdom retain their symbolic value, but their operational impact depends on a governable France. In this sense, the current instability undermines not only the country’s own influence but also the architecture of European power as a whole.
Georgina Wright
Senior Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF)
Undoubtedly, although France's political turmoil hurts the country itself much more than it does the EU. A distracted or hamstrung Paris erodes Europe's strategic heft.
France has been instrumental in driving recent European geopolitical advances: shaping much of the thinking on defense and industrial policy priorities in Brussels. It has also worked with the UK to shape the coalition of the willing, a reassurance force that could be deployed in Ukraine in the case of a ceasefire.
While it is true that foreign policy is mainly set by the president, the protracted political crisis since 2024 has dented the Élysée's ability to set the European agenda in Brussels. Macron will continue to be consumed by domestic politics over the next months, further eroding France's influence.
Meanwhile, the absence of a stable government and the constant ministerial churn make it harder for Paris to build coalitions and forge compromise. It also threatens defense spending commitments and budgetary changes at a moment when France and Europe must invest more in deterrence and resilience.
For many European partners, France will continue to be seen as unyielding and unreliable. Going forward, the responsibility for leadership in Europe will likely fall on other countries, notably Germany, narrowing the diversity of strategic options and slowing bold initiatives that require French endorsement. That's bad news for the EU, and especially for France.
Riccardo Alcaro
Head of the Global Actors Program, Italian Institute for International Affairs (IAI)
Yes, France's political crisis does risk weakening Europe's geopolitical hand.
Emmanuel Macron has been a mixed blessing for the EU: while he stood out for his almost unique capacity to articulate a long-term vision for a more autonomous and integrated Europe, his poor political instincts—culminating in the ill-fated decision to call snap elections in June 2024—have eroded his domestic authority and fueled opposition to the pro-EU agenda he embodies.
A politically paralyzed France, or one led by a sovereigntist government from the nationalist right, would likely hinder progress on key European priorities, from sustained support for Ukraine to implementing the Draghi report on competitiveness.
For Italy, Macron's decline offers short-term political benefits but long-term strategic risks. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her allies may relish his fall, which vindicates their sovereigntist rhetoric and weakens the liberal internationalist project in Europe's second largest country. Yet the National Rally (RN) coming to power in Paris would complicate her ambitions, as the party's leader Marine Le Pen would present a significant challenge to Meloni's status within Europe's nationalist right. More broadly, an inward-looking France would deprive Italy of a vital partner in advancing EU resource pooling and strategic investment—essential for Europe's economic resilience and global influence.
Armida van Rij
Senior Research Fellow, Centre for European Reform
France's political permacrisis is bad news for European rearmament efforts. As long as there is political instability, discussions on the country's budget, including defense allocations, will continue to be held hostage. The opposition parties have no incentive to work with any new government. They believe the prolonged instability increases their chances in the 2027 presidential elections.
Like last year, emergency legislation can roll over the 2025 budget into 2026, but this won't allow the much-needed increases in defense spending announced by President Macron in July.
France, like most EU countries, urgently needs to invest more in defense to respond to a worsening security environment. The spending limits for 2026 had earmarked €6.7 billion ($7.8 billion) for defense, an extra investment of €3.5 billion ($4 billion) over pre-existing allocations to help modernize the French armed forces and fund capability gaps including ammunition stock, drones, electronic warfare capabilities, and more. The proposed increase may not be sufficient—but it is necessary. Without it, Europe's rearmament efforts will take a hit.
France's heavily constrained fiscal situation had limited its role to expressing grand visions for Europe without the funds to put them into action. That this will continue so long as there is a political crisis is bad news for the EU.
Pierre Vimont
Senior Fellow, Carnegie Europe
One would rather believe that, in spite of France's unprecedented political crisis, EU diplomacy will move on as usual. Yet it seems unlikely that Paris, stuck in the midst of its current institutional chaos, can preserve enough credibility and influence to sustain its diplomatic ambitions and those of the union.
Naturally, Paris and Brussels will pretend otherwise, but intertwined interests between the two make both rise and fall together. France has traditionally preempted the role of natural think tanker for the union (think of strategic autonomy). And all its European partners readily accepted that informal division of labor whether they liked French concepts or not. Additionally, the country has been a regular provider of creative diplomatic initiatives like, recently, the coalition of the willing in Russia’s war against Ukraine or the French-Saudi move to recognize Palestinian statehood at the UN.
In Paris's absence it is difficult to imagine any other European nation ready to take over, if only for lack of the two important components of the country's diplomatic sway: its nuclear deterrence and permanent seat at the UN Security Council. One can only hope therefore, for the sake of the EU, that French politicians rapidly regain some dose of political wisdom.
Judy Dempsey
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Carnegie Europe
Europe's geopolitical hand is weak with or without France's political crisis.
For European leaders to depend on Emmanuel Macron to respond to the plethora of crises they face is ducking the essential issue. No single leader can steer Europe in a strategic direction, whether it involves having independent security and defense structures, Russia, the Middle East or rescuing multilateralism. Macron wanted the EU to embrace these challenges strategically. During his second stint in the Élysée his views won increasing support from his European peers.
What a contrast at home. As he attempts to form a sixth government in two years, the president's beleaguered domestic status, combined with a fragmented, uncompromising National Assembly refusing to agree on reforms and savings to curb the budget deficit (5.8 percent of GDP) and national debt (114 percent of GDP), has led to paralysis.
That's the paradox of Macron's status. He is feted abroad for his foreign policies and security ties with the UK, Poland, and Germany. At home, he is alienated for his perceived arrogance. Marine Le Pen's ambitious hard-right RN and Jean-Luc Mélenchon's hard-left France Unbowed are biding their time in the hope of replacing Macron. That is Europe's biggest worry about the bloc's second largest economy.
Jacob Ross
Senior Fellow, German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Given the domestic chaos in France, German officials have long consoled themselves with Emmanuel Macron's reserved domain—the near-free reign the constitution gives presidents on foreign, defense, and security policy.
Despite the many changes of government, it is still widely believed in Berlin that the French president ultimately has the decisive say in international policy—whether with regard to Ukraine, Gaza, or ongoing EU negotiations.
On Monday, following outgoing Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu's resignation announcement, German government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius commented that Macron should be given “a little space” and warned against dramatizing the situation. The comments were fatally reminiscent of the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign, when the former German government largely ignored the possibility of Donald Trump's return to the White House.
Publicly, Berlin gives the impression that it does not recognize (or does not want to recognize) how rapidly Macron is losing control of French politics. In late August, an ambitious bilateral agenda was adopted at the Franco-German Council of Ministers meeting in Toulon. Much of this agenda could soon be obsolete, especially if the far-right National Rally emerges as the clear winner in the next elections, whether in Parliament or for the presidency. Defense-industrial cooperation, compromises on energy, and international trade policy: all of these risk becoming bargaining chips in an increasingly sovereigntist debate in France.
Daniela Schwarzer
Member of the Executive Board, Bertelsmann Stiftung
France's domestic political crisis is a triple challenge to Europe's international role.
First, the country is part of the coalition of the willing that seeks to step up military and financial support for Ukraine. Although foreign and defense policy decisions rest mainly with the president, the absence of a functioning government, or the presence of a weak one combined with a polarized Parliament, undermines France's—and thereby the EU's—capacity to act.
Second, a prolonged domestic crisis could weigh on the sustainability of public finances. Several prime ministers have failed to pass a budget, and internal divisions have now led to renewed challenges to the recently agreed pension reform. Should financial markets respond by raising the risk premium on French debt, this would not only burden France but could also affect the entire eurozone—at a time when Europe's ambition to strengthen its foreign policy and defense role requires greater investment in external action.
Third, the persistent inability to resolve the political crisis risks empowering far-right and far-left extremists and eroding the credibility of the democratic system. This situation could be exploited by actors both within and outside France who have a vested interest in undermining democracy and the Western political alliance.
Fabian Zuleeg
Chief Executive, European Policy Centre
France's latest political crisis undoubtedly weakens the EU's international standing—but the damage is best understood as part of a deeper, longstanding structural weakness. Even before Paris entered this new bout of turmoil, the union was far from convincing in foreign policy. Collective action tends to work only when there is already near-unanimity, as with support for Ukraine; on most other issues, divisions between member states dilute Europe's voice and slow its response.
The current disarray in Paris heightens this fragility and adds a more alarming prospect: the strong possibility that France could soon elect a far-right, Euroskeptic president. Hungary has already shown how a single member state can obstruct common positions, hollow out values, and block key decisions. A Euroskeptic France would not just be another spoiler; it could become a wrecking ball for the union's capacity to act in an era of Russian aggression, an assertive China, conflict in the Middle East, and an unpredictable America.
Europe must prepare now. That means stress-testing and, where possible, strengthening the legal and enforcement mechanisms that uphold EU decisions and protect its budget and institutions. Hoping that France will stay committed to the European project is not a strategy. Preparing for the opposite scenario is essential.
Manuel Muniz
Provost, IE University
France's current political turmoil poses a serious challenge to Europe's integration project and geopolitical standing. At a time when the union faces simultaneous crises—from Russia’s ongoing aggression to a more assertive China, renewed instability in the Middle East, and an unpredictable United States—the paralysis in Paris undermines the EU's capacity to act strategically and cohesively.
France, together with Germany, has long been the anchor of Europe's political and defense integration. Its internal disarray therefore resonates well beyond its borders. The uncertainty surrounding French governance weakens the credibility of Europe's external posture and complicates the implementation of the new web of strategic partnerships Paris has recently forged with Berlin, Rome, Madrid, Warsaw, and London. These accords, which span defense cooperation, industrial coordination, and joint strategic planning, were designed to reinforce collective capacity for action in an increasingly volatile world.
If France remains mired in domestic confrontation, the EU risks drifting back into fragmentation and short-termism, precisely when global dynamics demand unity and long-term vision. The lesson is clear: Europe's ability to project power abroad depends on stability and cohesion at home. What happens in Paris will shape not only France's future, but that of the entire European project.
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