France’s prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, has resigned after days of increasingly feverish speculation about an imminent government reshuffle. The president, Emmanuel Macron, who is seeking to give a new impetus to his second mandate before European parliament elections and the Paris Olympics this summer, thanked Borne for her “exemplary work in the service of the nation”. “You have put our project into effect with the courage, engagement and the determination of a stateswoman,” Macron tweeted. In her resignation letter, Borne said it was “more necessary than ever to continue the reforms” being pursued by the government. “I wanted to tell you how passionate I have been about this mission,” she wrote, adding that she was “guided by the constant concern, which we share, to achieve rapid and tangible results for our fellow citizens”. Nevertheless, she made it clear the decision to go had not been hers and that she had taken note of the president’s wish to appoint a new prime minister. Under the French system, the president appoints the prime minister but cannot dismiss them from the post. Instead, they must ask for their resignation. The reshuffle comes five months before the European parliament elections, with Eurosceptics expected to make record gains at a time of widespread public discontent over surging living costs and the failure of European governments to curb immigration. Opinion polls show Macron’s party trailing that of the far-right leader Marine Le Pen byeight to 10 points before the June vote. Borne, 62, was appointed prime minister in May 2022, shortly after Macron was re-elected to the Élysée. She was the second female prime minister since the Fifth Republic began in 1958. Weeks later the government lost its absolute majority in the Assemblée Nationale in a general election. It meant Borne, as head of a minority government, was forced to push contested legislation promised in Macron’s presidential campaign, including an overhaul of the pension system, through parliament often with recourse to a controversial constitutional clause, the 49:3, that avoided a vote on the issues. Borne’s government used the clause 23 times. A fiercely contested immigration bill was passed after Borne sought a compromise with the rightwing Républicains party that pushed the legislation further to the right than the government had wished. Borne, who described herself as a “woman of the left”, found herself under fire from opposite sides of the political spectrum. On Monday, Cyrielle Chatelain, the president of the Ecologist group of MPs, suggested Borne had been a puppet prime minister. “She has served Emmanuel Macron to the point of losing herself. She wanted to serve the state. Instead, she will have served a president with no direction, no values, who has only one obsession: destroying our social model,” Chatelain tweeted. Borne, a graduate of the elite grandes écoles, including École Polytechnique, served as transport minister, ecological transition minister and employment minister before being named as prime minister. At the time of her resignation, no successor had been named and the Élysée confirmed that Borne, along with other members of the government, would continue the work on “current issues until the nomination of a new government”. Three names were being put forward in the French media as likely successors: Gabriel Attal, the education minister, who if appointed at the age of 34 would be France’s youngest and first openly gay prime minister; Sébastien Lecornu, the armed forces minister; and Julien Denormandie, the former agriculture minister who announced he was leaving politics after he was not appointed prime minister after the 2022 presidential election. Earlier in the day, Macron appeared on fighting form as he urged French people to get out and exercise daily as the country prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games. In a video posted on X Macron appeared in front of a punch bag with a pair of boxing gloves slung over his shoulder, suggesting people should work out for 30 minutes every day “and longer if you can”. “In 200 days it starts. Sport is a great national cause this year,” Macron said. The president, 46, regularly boxes in a gym, alongside his bodyguards, and has been photographed, in official shirt and tie, sparring with amateur boxers.