France’s Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, unexpectedly resigned on Monday, serving less than 24 hours after assembling his cabinet. This swift departure has made his administration the shortest in modern French history, sending shockwaves across the nation.
President Emmanuel Macron’s office confirmed the resignation of Mr. Lecornu and his ministers in a brief statement. The move comes amidst considerable unrest surrounding the cabinet’s formation, which was a delicate blend of centrists and conservatives.
This sudden resignation has dramatically increased pressure on President Macron from both left-wing and far-right opposition parties. They are now demanding immediate parliamentary elections or even Macron’s own resignation, options he has consistently rejected.
Lecornu, a trusted confidant of President Macron, was appointed less than a month ago. He is now the third prime minister to leave office in under a year, highlighting a level of political instability previously uncommon in France.
In a televised address, Mr. Lecornu stated his efforts to “build the conditions under which we might adopt a budget for France” and to “respond to a handful of emergencies that cannot wait for 2027,” the year of France’s next presidential elections. However, he concluded, “the conditions were no longer met for me to perform the duties of prime minister.”
The financial markets reacted nervously to the news, particularly given existing concerns that Lecornu would struggle to pass a crucial budget by year-end, vital for addressing France’s escalating debt and deficit.
Since the snap elections called by Mr. Macron in 2024, France’s lower house of Parliament has been gridlocked. It features a fragmented landscape of left-wing factions, a fragile center-right coalition, and a formidable nationalist far-right bloc, with no single party holding a clear working majority.
Marine Le Pen, the influential leader of the far-right National Rally party, argued that only new parliamentary elections could resolve this profound political deadlock. “The farce has lasted long enough,” she declared to reporters following Lecornu’s resignation.
Tasked with presenting a budget on Tuesday, Mr. Lecornu faced an intricate challenge. He needed to solidify a precarious alliance with conservatives while simultaneously appeasing the moderate Socialist Party. The Socialists’ demands, such as a wealth tax or a freeze on the recently increased legal retirement age, clashed directly with President Macron’s staunchly pro-business agenda.
In a final attempt to navigate this impasse, Mr. Lecornu announced last week that he would forgo a constitutional power that allows a spending bill to pass without a full parliamentary vote – a tactic frequently employed by his predecessors. This risky gamble aimed to grant lawmakers a greater voice, hoping to prevent his government’s collapse before budget discussions even commenced.
Yet, in his address, Lecornu criticized France’s political parties for squandering this opportunity, attributing the failure to “partisan appetites.” He suggested that many politicians were more focused on the upcoming 2027 elections and argued that the lack of cross-party negotiation in French politics doomed his efforts.
“Political parties are continuing to act as though they all have an absolute majority in the National Assembly,” Mr. Lecornu lamented, emphasizing his readiness to compromise while each party insisted on its entire platform being adopted.
Opposition parties, however, lay the blame squarely on President Macron. They contend that his refusal to appoint a prime minister and cabinet willing to challenge him, despite his centrist alliance’s poor performance in the snap elections, is the root cause. Lecornu’s two predecessors and their cabinets were also part of this same conservative-centrist coalition.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the veteran leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, asserted on Monday that Macron was “at the origin of the chaos, because he did not want to accept the results of the early parliamentary elections he had called.” Mélenchon, whose party has consistently called for Macron’s resignation, concluded, “Since then, the republic and democracy have been distorted.”