France’s Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu has resigned.
The Elysée palace made the announcement after Lecornu met French President, Emmanuel Macron for an hour this morning.
The shock move comes only 26 days after Lecornu was appointed Prime Minister following the collapse of the previous government of François Bayrou.
It also comes less than a day after his cabinet was unveiled.
Lecornu on Sunday named Roland Lescure, a close ally of Macron, as Finance Minister in a new cabinet that saw several senior Ministers in the last ousted government retain their posts.
Former Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, who oversaw France’s “whatever it costs” response to the COVID pandemic, was appointed Defence Minister.
Several key Ministers remained in their post, including Jean-Noel Barrot at the foreign ministry, Bruno Retailleau at the interior ministry and Gerald Darmanin at the justice ministry.
Parties across the board in the National Assembly had fiercely criticised the composition of Lecornu’s cabinet, which was largely unchanged from Bayrou’s, and threatened to vote it down.
Far-right leader, Marine Le Pen said on X, “The choice of this identical government, seasoned with the man who bankrupted France, is pathetic,” referring to France’s surging deficit during Le Maire’s tenure at the finance ministry. “We are utterly dismayed,” she added.
Hard-left lawmaker Eric Coquerel also told a news agency, “This is Bayrou’s government without Bayrou, and will implement the same policies.”
French politics has been highly unstable since July 2024, when snap parliamentary elections resulted in a hung parliament.
This has made it difficult for any Prime Minister to garner the necessary support to pass bills and the yearly budget.
Michel Barnier was appointed Prime Minister last September but was ousted within three months.
The government of his successor François Bayrou’s too was voted down after nine months after parliament refused to back his austerity budget, which aimed to slash government spending by €44bn ($51bn; £38bn).
Lecornu, the former armed forces Minister and a Macron loyalist, was France’s fifth Prime Minister in under two years.
Lecornu Criticises Parties’ Unwillingness To Reach Compromise
Meanwhile, Lecornu said that conditions were not fulfilled for him to carry on as Prime Minister and criticised the unwillingness by political parties to reach compromises.
In his brief speech outside the Hôtel de Matignon, the Prime Minister’s residence, which he only occupied for less than a month, Lecornu sharply criticised the “partisan appetites” of political factions, who he said “are all behaving as if they had an absolute majority.”
“I was ready for compromise but all parties wanted the other party to adopt their programmes in their entirety.”
Sébastien Lecornu
He added, “It wouldn’t need much for this to work,” saying, however, that parties needed to be more humble and “to cast some egos aside.”
The new cabinet was due to hold its first meeting this afternoon, but despite Lecornu’s promises to “break” with the strategy of his unpopular predecessor François Bayrou, the lineup of new ministers angered opponents and allies alike.
Several parties are now clamouring for early elections, with some calling for Macron to resign too – although he has always said that he will not stand down before his term ends in 2027.
Marine Le Pen of the hard-right National Rally (RN) said, “The only wise thing to do now is to hold elections.”
“The joke’s gone on long enough. French people are fed up. Macron has put the country in an extremely difficult position.”
Marine Le Oen
The decision on how to proceed now rests with Macron. He has three options; appoint another Prime Minister, dissolve the National Assembly once again or he can resign himself. The last is the least likely.
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