démissionner

To resign — from a job, a political office, or a position of responsibility (démissionner de son poste). A staple of political and workplace vocabulary, and one of the most consequential verbs in French political history.

• Le ministre a démissionné après le scandale. — The minister resigned after the scandal.
• Elle a démissionné de son poste pour raisons personnelles. — She resigned from her position for personal reasons.
• Il menace de démissionner si rien ne change. — He's threatening to resign if nothing changes.

Démissionner is intransitive and always followed by de (démissionner de ses fonctions) — English "resign a position" tempts learners to make it transitive, which isn't correct French.

• politics "Je cesse d'exercer mes fonctions de président de la République" — Charles de Gaulle's terse announcement of his resignation on the night of April 28, 1969, after losing a referendum — one of the most abrupt exits in modern French political history.