The French government bureaucracy has experienced two years of great stress since the controversial dissolution of the National Assembly in June 2024. However, this should not justify the fact that there have been two suicides and two attempts – in a period of seven months – among the officials working for the current Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu. Hence, the Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation, supported by another internal one at the Matignon Palace.
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The facts were revealed this Monday by the public broadcaster France Inter. Justice was activated in June following the complaint filed by Laura (fictitious name, to preserve her anonymity). This veteran official tried to throw herself onto the train tracks in April, but a person on the platform stopped her at the last moment. She had made her will and prepared her burial months before.
According to her lawyer, the frustrated suicide, assigned to the Prime Minister’s correspondence service, had felt invisible at work, no longer invited to meetings, with her name off the organizational chart and even worse gestures such as mockery. She could not bear this moral harassment and humiliation after decades of working life. Laura decided to file the complaint under Article 40 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which provides that any official who becomes aware of a crime must inform the public prosecutor.
On October 6, 2025, another woman, an agent of the Directorate of Legal and Administrative Information, tried to cut her throat with a cutter at her workplace. Six months later, an official from the General Investment Service committed suicide at home while teleworking. It was after a heated argument with his boss about the theft of small bottles of liquor. A few days later, an official from the Government General Secretariat threw himself onto the train tracks in Val-d’Oise, near Paris. He was under a lot of stress due to the reorganization in his department and had often been on sick leave. He was well known to Laura, the official who finally filed the complaint. He had warned of his intentions in an email.
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The Prime Minister’s Services (SPM) are a huge administrative machine that works behind the scenes but whose work is essential for the functioning of the State and its continuity when there are changes at the top. This is what in Italy, another traditionally very unstable country, is called sottogoverno. The SPM includes about fifty general secretariats, directorates, missions, as well as independent bodies such as the Defender of Rights or the High Authority for Public Transparency.
Although a cause-effect relationship cannot be determined, it would be logical to deduce that the political instability since June 2024 has contributed to the officials’ discomfort, due to the continuous changes of those responsible and the criteria. Macron’s unexpected decision on June 9, 2024, to call early legislative elections, in response to the poor results of his fellow party members in the European elections and the rise of the far right, was heavily criticized from all quarters. It pushed the country almost to chaos, due to being ungovernable. Four prime ministers followed one another: Gabriel Attal, Michel Barnier, François Bayrou, and Sébastien Lecornu.
The list finally stopped because the country could no longer afford it, given the financial risk, and because the focus is on the presidential elections on April 18 and May 2 next year, elections that will likely be followed by other legislative ones and that do not guarantee political stability or calm conditions for government officials.
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