France’s new prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu – the fifth since 2022 – faces a task many already call impossible. Appointed by President Emmanuel Macron on September 9, just one day after the Bayrou government fell on a confidence vote, Lecornu must assemble a working majority – or at least prevent a majority coalition against him – to pass the budget by December 31.
Am 8. September 2025 verlor Premierminister François Bayrou im französischen Parlament die von ihm selbst angestrengte Vertrauensfrage – als erster Regierungschef der V. Republik überhaupt. Sein Scheitern ist mehr als eine Episode tagespolitischer Instabilität – es legt fundamentale Probleme im Verfassungssystem offen.
At the resumption of political activity after the summer, France’s Prime Minister François Bayrou unexpectedly announced that he would use his constitutional prerogative to ask for a parliamentary vote of confidence on September 8. The main decision now facing the French president – who has repeatedly declared that he will not leave office early – is whether to attempt to construct a new governing formula within the current parliament or to call new elections just fourteen months after the last dissolution. Neither option is attractive, and both would effectively reset French politics to 2024.
One year after New Caledonia was tormented by violent demonstrations, resulting in the deaths of 14 people and causing over 2 billion euros worth of damage, representatives of New Caledonia and the French State signed the Bougival Accord to bring an end to the situation and pave the way for peace. While Emmanuel Macron hails the Accord as “historic”, the overseas minister Manuel Valls celebrates it as “the best response to the fear”. However, a closer look at the agreement reveals that the Accord continues to entrench the French hold on the island and renders New Caledonian independence more elusive than ever.
Last week, negotiations for a new UK–France agreement culminated in the announcement of a 'one in, one out' pilot scheme, under which the UK will return small boat arrivals to France while accepting asylum seekers selected from France who can demonstrate family ties in Britain. The agreement signals a sui generis evolution in European migration control. For the first time, rather than pushing asylum seekers back to third countries to avoid legal responsibilities under EU and international law, an EU Member State is directly preventing departures from its own territory.
Am Dienstag hat das Bundesverfassungsgericht die Verfassungsbeschwerde eines Arztes verworfen: Der Arzt hatte einem psychisch kranken Mann auf dessen Wunsch eine Infusion mit einer tödlich wirkenden Substanz gelegt. Obwohl der Patient den Zugang selbst öffnete, nahm der BGH einen Totschlag in mittelbarer Täterschaft an. Der Fall zeigt einmal mehr, dass der Fragenkreis von Sterbehilfe und Unterstützung beim Suizid dringend einer durchdachten gesetzlichen Regelung bedarf. Anregungen dazu können neue Normierungen der Materie in Frankreich und England geben.
The principle of jus soli has been progressively dismantled in France through the tightening of conditions governing access to French nationality in Mayotte—the 101st department of the Republic and an archipelago in the Comoros located in the Indian Ocean. This restrictive approach was reinforced by the adoption, on 9 April 2025, of a new legislative measure designed to further limit access to birthright citizenship. The Conseil constitutionnel upheld the constitutionality of the contested provisions in its decision of 7 May 2025.
Law can be viewed not as a universal (or European) science but, following Geertz, as local knowledge. To illustrate the relevance of this perspective for understanding EU law, its effects, and the limits of integration through law, this text draws on the findings of a “classical” comparative study on the application of proportionality as an EU law principle in three national contexts: France, England, and Greece. This type of approach has the potential to evolve – and indeed is already evolving – into an interdisciplinary exploration of the diverse ways in which EU law is understood, applied, and experienced in settings as varied as the Paagalayiri market in Ouagadougou, the train-line connection between Paris and Marseille, or the camp of Moria on Lesvos.
It was a political bombshell. On Monday, 31 March 2025, Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right party Rassemblement National (National Rally) in France, was convicted of misappropriation of public funds in the so-called “parliamentary assistants” case. The judgment is marked by an unusual degree of judicial creativity, particularly in its underlying conception of democracy, which may be understood through the lens of militant democracy. Although it does not constitute a political judgment in the traditional, partisan sense, its constitutional and symbolic significance is substantial—and the backlash it has provoked against the judiciary is a cause for concern.
On March 31st, French politician Marine Le Pen was convicted for embe-zzlement of public funds – and sentenced to ineligibility to run for office for five years, effective immediately. Since then, the RN incessantly gathered outrage, calling out the “tyranny of judges” and claiming that the verdict end-angers democracy. After a week, it’s time to take a closer look at “the scandal”. Spoiler alert: There is no “political death” that might be the fault of a court – if at all, it was a (easily avoidable) suicide.