Overview

• Sébastien Lecornu’s government stepped down on October 6, reviving the prospect that Emmanuel Macron could dissolve the lower house under Article 12.
• Article 12 grants the president exclusive authority to dissolve the Assembly, immediately terminating deputies’ five-year mandates.
• The Fifth Republic has recorded six dissolutions, used for different aims from de Gaulle’s plebiscitary confirmations to Mitterrand’s post-presidential resets and Chirac’s 1997 gamble that ushered in cohabitation.
• Macron’s June 2024 dissolution, framed as a bid for political “clarification” after the Rassemblement National’s European election gains, failed to produce an absolute majority and fed ongoing instability.
• As speculation over a fresh vote intensifies, health insurance official Marguerite Cazeneuve warned a dissolution could elevate the RN, prompting denunciations from RN lawmakers who accused her of partisanship and demanded her resignation.