For the second Sunday in a row, on October 12, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu appointed a government. This unprecedented oddity under France's Fifth Republic arose from the absence of a parliamentary majority in the Assemblée Nationale since the June 2024 snap elections called by President Emmanuel Macron.

The arrival at the prime minister's office of Lecornu, a close ally of Macron, set off a cascade of political twists and turns, from attempts to bring the Socialists on board, to Lecornu's surprise resignation, to the implosion of the alliance between the centrists and the conservatives. Here is a look back at the most turbulent week of Macron's second term.

On Friday, October 3, Lecornu once again summoned opposition parties to his office for a "last-chance meeting," which would in fact be followed by several more. At this stage of negotiations, the left only wanted to talk about Gabriel Zucman's proposed wealth tax.

The prime minister tried to convince the Socialists that the plan proposed by the young French economist to tax the super-rich wouldn't work. He argued instead that a tax on holding companies devised by the Ministry of Finance, combined with higher taxes for top earners, would be more effective. But the left-wingers held firm and scrutinized the details, making the discussion difficult.

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