France has just been haunted by a government of ghosts, an administration led by Sebastien Lecornu whose ministers were appointed but never met, whose policies were never debated, and whose existence was fleeting and ethereal. The cabinet was a spectral entity that vanished before it could ever become real.
On Sunday, the government was given form. Prime Minister Lecornu announced the names of his ministers, giving them titles and responsibilities. On paper, a new government existed, ready to take the reins of the state at its first meeting scheduled for Monday.
However, this government never materialized in the physical world. It remained a ghost in the machine of state. The political backlash was so severe that it exorcised the government from the realm of the living before it could even convene. The ministers remained names on a list, political ghosts who never had the chance to occupy their offices.
The cancellation of the first cabinet meeting was the moment the ghost was officially busted. It confirmed that the government had no corporeal form, no substance, no power. It was an apparition that had briefly flickered into existence only to disappear at the first sign of daylight.
The legacy of this ghost government is a chilling one. It leaves behind a power vacuum and a sense of unreality in French politics. The country was, for a moment, led by a list of names that had no actual power, a haunting reminder of the deep and spectral crisis afflicting the nation.