Macron’s decision to call snap parliamentary elections in 2024 was meant to consolidate power. Instead, it backfired spectacularly. His centrist coalition lost its majority, forcing him to govern through fragile alliances and endless compromises. As his latest prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, struggles to pass a budget that satisfies both parliament and the markets, many in France are asking a sobering question: can the Fifth Republic survive until 2027?
By The Independentist news desk
Paris is burning politically — and when the palace trembles, the colonies feel the shockwaves.
The French Fifth Republic, created in 1958, is facing one of its deepest crises. President Emmanuel Macron, now in his second and final term, has cycled through eight prime ministers, four of them since mid-2024. This constant reshuffling has laid bare the fragility of France’s semi-presidential system, often described as a “republican monarchy.” In this structure, the president reigns like a modern king, towering over weak parliaments and fragmented parties.
Macron’s decision to call snap parliamentary elections in 2024 was meant to consolidate power. Instead, it backfired spectacularly. His centrist coalition lost its majority, forcing him to govern through fragile alliances and endless compromises. As his latest prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, struggles to pass a budget that satisfies both parliament and the markets, many in France are asking a sobering question: can the Fifth Republic survive until 2027?
Amid this domestic turbulence, a curious figure has re-emerged: Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Anjou — a direct descendant of Louis XVI. In a high-profile interview, the 51-year-old aristocrat, often referred to as “Louis XX,” declared that he is ready to serve France if called upon. He warned that the country is sinking into an “increasingly insoluble political crisis,” and expressed hope that the monarchical legacy he embodies might inspire a nation in disarray.
Most French citizens — around 17%, according to polls — have little appetite for a return to monarchy. But the Duke’s intervention is more than nostalgic theatre. It shines a light on something deeper: France’s institutions remain deeply centralized and monarchic in their DNA. Even without a crown, the Fifth Republic functions like a monarchy. Macron himself has often been compared to Louis XIV — the Sun King — for his top-down style of governance. “L’État, c’est moi” may no longer be spoken aloud, but its spirit lingers in the Élysée Palace.
This monarchic instinct doesn’t stop at France’s borders. It has long extended into its former colonies — and nowhere is this more evident than in Ambazonia (Southern Cameroons). Since the botched decolonization of 1961, through the 1972 pseudo-federation and the 1984 annexation, Paris has maintained strategic control of the region through its loyal regime in Yaoundé. Paul Biya’s government, the longest-standing autocracy in Africa, is in many ways a mirror image of the French presidential monarchy: hyper-centralized, dependent on the CFA franc, propped up by military cooperation, and protected diplomatically by Paris.
As Macron’s grip at home weakens, his foreign policy has grown more interventionist. Unable to project strength domestically, he seeks to reinforce it abroad. This has been clear in the lead-up to Cameroon’s October 2025 elections. Behind the scenes, France’s fingerprints can be seen on troop redeployments, political realignments, and the carefully managed rise of Issa Tchiroma — a man cast in a role that serves Paris’s broader interests. The aim is not to empower Ambazonia but to extend France’s presidential model into the region: to keep Ambazonia as a peripheral territory governed through Yaoundé’s centralized apparatus.
For Ambazonians, this isn’t a distant drama unfolding in Paris. It’s the very architecture of their oppression. The same political model now showing cracks in France is the one being imposed on them through constitutional manipulation, military occupation, and diplomatic shielding. As the Fifth Republic struggles to hold itself together, Paris looks outward, hoping to stabilize its crumbling edifice by tightening its grip abroad. Ambazonia sits on the front line of this strategy.
That’s why the Ambazonian resistance — from ghost towns to diplomatic offensives and community resilience — is more than a local struggle. It is a direct stand against the export of a decaying political system dressed up as democracy. What happens in Paris does not stay in Paris; it reverberates through territories still caught in France’s imperial orbit.
As Louis XX dreams of the throne and Macron rules like a Sun King without a crown, France reveals its paradox: a republic that behaves like a monarchy, seeking to replicate its power structures overseas even as they crumble at home. For Ambazonia, understanding this dynamic is essential. The struggle is not only against Yaoundé; it is against a centuries-old French political doctrine of centralism and control.
And today, that doctrine is wobbling. The palace is no longer as secure as it once seemed.
The Independentist news desk
