In sum: French politics is in a real mess. Asking the outgoing PM to return to the job he just quit is not going to fix the mess. Casual spectators can enjoy the plot-twists 🍿👀, Brits can compare the longevity of French PMs to 🥬, but for many in France the situation is actually one of despair 😞 /end

Understandably the Left are very peeved. They hoped they might get one of their own as the next PM. They did not. They hoped they could overturn the pension reform. They cannot. No surprise then that some have threatened to no-confidence Lecornu immediately, while others refuse to rule it out 12/

What the Left really want it to overturn the bitterly opposed pension reform from 2023 that raised the retirement age to 64. There were hints this week that pensions were back on the table - turns out Macron is not willing to scrap the reform, only to delay it until after the next election 11/

Lecornu has offered meaningful parliamentary input into the budget & promised not to use constitutional clause 49.3 to force the budget through without a vote. He has also offered to soften the targets for deficit reduction, which would mean less austerity but more debt. Will it be enough? 10/

Mainstream parties don't need to agree on everything but they do need to find enough common ground to pass a budget. Urgently. Their failure to do so previously has left a string of ousted prime ministers in its wake. What can Lecornu do to succeed where all others have failed? 9/

So no surprise that the far-right & far-left are calling for elections & promising to vote down the government before its members are even announced. & Macron is relying once again on fear of the extremes to try & force everyone else to fall in line behind him. It's become his signature move 8/

But what this week of discussions HAS demonstrated is that there is, in fact, one thing uniting all moderate parties - the fear of another snap election. Because polls suggest the far-right would win & the moderates could all lose seats. They don't want that. & the extremist parties want it a lot 7/

Will the new government be yet another replica of its failed predecessors? Tbc. One person who's clearly out is Bruno Le Maire, whose controversial return to the previous government precipitated its collapse. Lecornu has also said the government must be free of those with presidential ambitions 6/

"Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you" 5/

Lecornu himself is a close ally of Macron, and many see this as Macron's desperate bid to hold onto power. But Macron also has the challenge of uniting moderate left & right when neither side wants to work with the other, especially 18 months from the next presidential election 4/

While speculation was rife about who would succeed Lecornu as prime minister, it seemed clear that Lecornu did not want the job back. There was much speculation about a PM from the left, or maybe the centrist Jean-Louis Borloo. But what did we get after all that? Lecornu again. 3/

On Monday morning, Lecornu surprised everyone by resigning, taking the new govt down with him. Then he was asked by Macron to engage in intense negotiations with (most) other parties to find a way out of the impasse. On Weds night he went on tv saying his mission was complete 2/

And the person he nominated to replace him in the Defence portfolio was a key bone of contention - Bruno le Maire, finance minister 2017-24, whose nomination was bitterly opposed by the right-wing Republicans and contributed to the downfall of the government almost as soon as it had been nominated

You have to feel a bit sorry for all those nominated to the French government last night who went to bed excited to start their new jobs, only to wake up the next morning to find their posts revoked. A week is a long time in politics but they didn't even get one day

But another 18 months of political turmoil, coming on the back of years of crisis, will take a heavy toil on the beleaguered French economy, which is already struggling with high debt. Investors don't like uncertainty and France is a risky bet right now. 😕

The only other options are for Macron to resign, which he has refused to do, or else lurch from one crisis to the next till presidential election in 18 months' time. Most parties refusing to compromise now because they are already strategising for that election.