Welcome to the slow death of Emmanuel Macron.
With the collapse of his latest mayfly government, the French president is running out of dice to roll.
Last summer he dared voters to put the untested National Rally (RN) into government by calling snap elections.
The French responded by making Marine Le Pen’s party the single largest in the National Assembly or by backing a Left-wing alliance formed to keep the hard-Right from power.
Mr Macron can now only form minority governments which are, as events have proved three times in 12 months, vulnerable to votes of no confidence.
Part of the president’s pitch last year was that he was a bulwark of stability and competence compared to the “extremes” of hard-Right and Left.
Mr Macron claimed only his centrists had the practical solutions to the problems France is facing rather than being just a release valve for voters’ anger.
Those problems have not been solved.
France has public debt at 114 per cent of GDP and is under European Commission scrutiny for failing to control its budget.
Efforts to curb spending and reform pensions have failed, leading to the fall of two governments during 12 months of deadlock with a lame-duck president.
French prime minister Sébastien Lecornu stepped down on Monday morning after less than one month.
It was Mr Macron’s third government since the snap election but lasted less than 24 hours, costing the president his seventh prime minister. The cabinet was criticised for being stuffed with the same old faces of his allies.
Now RN, a party founded by a Holocaust-denying racist, has begun styling itself as the choice for stability. Some voters will see it as a more credible alternative to more of this Macron chaos.
Politics has for the past year been stuck in a Groundhog Day loop in which Macron urges parties and their MPs to grow up and reach a consensus to pass a budget – and they throw back in his face that “it’s all your fault”.
The result is a rather pathetic pantomime that risks further eroding the French people’s already deeply diminished faith in their political class.
Doing nothing is politically unsustainable. Another government will be voted down swiftly, if someone can be convinced to take the poisoned chalice of the premiership.
The clock is ticking down to presidential elections in 2027 and the europhile Mr Macron is desperate to prevent the Elysée going to the eurosceptic RN.
He could resign and trigger early presidential elections but he will not be able to fight them because he has reached his two-term limit and has no obvious successor.
He could dissolve the Assembly once again.
It will be the last time he is able to do so because the president must wait 12 months between calling such snap votes.
In a year, the presidential campaign will be in full swing and that vote is always followed by fresh Assembly elections, making this his last chance.
Snap elections now will probably lead to a strengthened RN but one that falls short of a majority.
It is also a vote which, on paper, Ms Le Pen will not be able to contest after being found guilty of embezzling EU parliament funds.
She is also barred from running in the presidential elections, which robs RN of its biggest political asset.
Ms Le Pen plans to fight this “lawfare” tooth and nail but if the appeals fail, her protege Jordan Bardella will step into her place.
If RN re-emerge as the most powerful single political force in the new Assembly, Mr Macron could name Mr Bardella as his prime minister.
This period of “cohabitation” will enrage the Left-wing New Popular Front (NPF) alliance, which includes the hard-Left France Unbowed of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
The NPF is furious that Mr Macron, a former socialist, has not named a Leftist prime minister despite their bloc getting the most votes at the last Assembly election.
An RN-led government will face virulent opposition, refusal to compromise or find consensus on policy, skittishness about the economy and votes of no confidence.
In short, all of the same problems that Mr Macron’s last clutch of governments have faced.
The president may calculate that RN will make such a mess of governing that no one in their right mind would vote for them in the presidential election.
He will also have the satisfaction of telling the French they should be more careful for what they wish for in the future before the 2027 presidential vote.
A discredited RN will then lose to a less extreme candidate. Assembly elections usually give a president elected for the first time a majority, which would clear out the hung parliament and end the deadlock.
Mr Macron is in the endgame of his presidency, with his legacy at stake, but he still has a few cards left to play.
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