Paris — Sebastien Lecornu, the loyalist picked by President Emmanuel Macron to be France’s fifth prime minister in two years, took office on a day of sprawling antigovernment protests on Wednesday that underlined the depth of the country’s political crisis.
Lecornu, a conservative Macron protégé who most recently served as his defence minister, arrived at the prime minister’s residence at midday. He met with former prime minister Francois Bayrou, who was ousted by parliament on Monday over plans to trim the country’s outsize deficit.
Lecornu said in a brief speech after a handover ceremony that the government would need “to be more creative, sometimes more technical, more serious”, in how it works with the opposition. But he also said “ruptures will be necessary”.
His immediate challenge will be how to steer a streamlined 2026 budget through parliament, which is split into three distinct ideological blocs. Parties broadly agree on the need to slash France’s deficit, which reached 5.8% of GDP in 2024, but not on how to do it.
He has to send a full draft of the 2026 budget to parliament by October 7, though there is some wiggle room until October 13, after which legislators will run out of time to pass the budget by year’s-end.
While the hard left said it would seek to topple Lecornu with an immediate no-confidence motion, the far-right National Rally (RN) signalled tentative willingness to work with him on the budget, as long as its budgetary demands are met. “His budget will be RN or his government will not be,” RN legislator Laure Lavalette posted on X late on Tuesday.
The RN is France’s largest parliamentary party and as such is a crucial factor in any potential no-confidence motion. Still, Lecornu is seen as the closest member of Macron’s circle to the RN, having dined with RN president Jordan Bardella last year.
Block everything
Lecornu’s other path to passing a budget involves uniting the Socialists, who want to water down budget cuts and tax the rich, with his former party, the Republicans, who are dead-set against any tax rises.
Macron, in an unusual step, called Socialist party leader Olivier Faure on Tuesday to tell him he would not be appointing a leftist as prime minister. On Wednesday, Faure appeared to leave the door ajar to working with Lecornu, while also saying he would support a no-confidence measure if he felt the government didn’t take on board its budgetary priorities.
Thousands of people across France took to the streets as part of the so-called Block Everything protests, an expression of broad discontent with Macron, proposed budget cuts and the entire political class. Authorities deployed 80,000 police nationwide to contain protesters who disrupted traffic, burnt rubbish bins and at times clashed with security forces.
“Anger has been rumbling for months, even years,” said Daniel Bretones, a union member protesting in Marseille. “We’re on the fifth prime minister under Macron’s second term, and it has never changed anything.”
Reuters
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