Outgoing Prime Minister Lecornu prepares for talks to end political gridlock
Source: RFI – All the news from France, Europe, Africa and the rest of the world.
France’s outgoing Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is expected to meet a clutch of top politicians on Tuesday as part of a last-ditch effort to rally cross-party support for a cabinet line-up.
Issued on:
2 min Reading time
Advertising
Lecornu unveiled a team of 18 politicians on Sunday evening but the selection immediately came under fire for containing many of the same faces from the previous incarnation under his predecessor François Bayrou.
Despite retaining his post as Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, the head of the Les Républicains party, complained about Lecornu’s choices on social media and called for a meeting of his group’s top politicians.
On Monday morning, Lecornu appeared on the steps of his Paris residence at Matignon to outline the reasons for his resignation after 27 days.
Within hours of his shock announcement, the 39-year-old former defence minister revealed he had accepted President Emmanuel Macron’s request that he spend 48 hours trying to negotiate a way through the political morass.
“The president tasked Lecornu with conducting final negotiations by Wednesday evening to define a platform of action and stability for the country,” a presidential official told the French news agency AFP.
French PM Lecornu quits a day after naming cabinet
‘Final discussions with political forces’
Lecornu, the shortest serving premier in the 67-year history of the Fifth Republic, said on social media he had accepted to hold final discussions with the political forces and would report back to Macron on Wednesday evening.
As a prelude to the horse-trading, Bruno Le Maire said that in order to break the deadlock he would not take up the offer to be defence minister.
Critics across the political spectrum blame him for a poor performance while he was finance minister between May 2017 and September 2024.
On Wednesday night, a presidential official said Macron will be ready to “assume his responsibilities” should Lecornu fail to knit together the disparate factions within the Assemblée Nationale.
Lecornu sworn in as prime minister as clashes erupt across France
‘Try something else’
Lecornu’s resignation compounds a political crisis that has rocked France since Macron called a snap general election in the summer of 2024 that ended with parliament split into three blocs.
Gabriel Attal, who was prime minister until September 2024 and who leads the president’s centrist party, admitted on Monday night that he no longer understood Macron’s decisions.
“After a succession of new premiers, it is time to try something else,” he told French broadcaster TF1.
“There was the dissolution [of parliament]. Since then, there have been decisions that give the impression of a kind of determination to maintain control,” he said.
National Rally (RN) chief Marine Le Pen said it would be wise for Macron to resign and also urged snap legislative polls “as absolutely necessary”.
RN leader Jordan Bardella added: “We are ready to govern.”
France’s Le Pen asks Bardella to prepare for 2027 presidential bid
Dealing with the budget
Lecornu’s two immediate predecessors, Bayrou and Michel Barnier, were ousted by MPs in no-confidence votes in a stand-off over an austerity budget.
The incoming prime minister will face the challenge of harvesting enough support for the spending bill.
France’s debt-to-GDP ratio is the European Union’s third-highest after Greece and Italy, and is close to twice the 60 percent permitted under EU rules.
Macron has resisted calls for fresh parliamentary polls. The 47-year-old has also ruled out resigning before his mandate ends in 2027.
(With newswires)
The original article: belongs to RFI – All the news from France, Europe, Africa and the rest of the world. .
