Madcap week in French politics ends with Macron reappointing Lecornu as PM

PARIS — Friday’s episode of France’s political soap opera concluded the way the week began: with Sébastien Lecornu as prime minister and no government around him.

French President Emmanuel Macron reappointed Lecornu as PM late Friday less than a week after his stunning resignation plunged France into a political crisis.

Lecornu confirmed he had accepted the job “out of duty” in a post on X and said he would “do everything possible to provide France with a budget by the end of the year.”

Lecornu’s first 27 days on the job were brought to a screeching halt Monday, just 14 hours after he named his cabinet. Its composition of mainly Macron allies and a few conservatives infuriated opposition parties and some members of the minority government coalition, making his future untenable.

The 39-year-old, who had blamed the government’s collapse in part on “partisan appetites,” said any future ministers would have to “commit to disconnect from presidential ambitions for 2027,” when the next election will be held.

Lecornu’s renomination had appeared a likely possibility with a prime minister needed in place to submit a budget to lawmakers ahead of a legislative deadline this upcoming Monday, despite his repeated attemps to tamp down speculation that he would once again take the reins of government.

Had Macron appointed someone else, they would have likely needed to put forward the budget drafted by Lecornu and his team, which aims to rein in unsustainable public spending and bring down a budget deficit projected to come in at 5.4 percent of GDP this year.

But the move constitutes an incredibly risky gamble for a president nearly out of goodwill with the public and increasingly isolated among his centrist allies.

Macron’s first prime minister, Edouard Philippe, is openly calling for Macron to resign. And Gabriel Attal, the head of Macron’s own party and a former prime minister himself, had said the president should appoint someone from outside his own ranks to push back against the impression that he was “doing everything to hold on to power.”

Though the 39-year-old Lecornu may have earned a measure of respect for his decision to step down, he is still widely seen as a faithful ally to Macron — a tie that might doom his second PM stint before he can start.

Bruno Retailleau, the outgoing interior minister and leader of the conservative Les Républicains, said his party would not support a government led by someone close to Macron.

The hard-left France Unbowed and the far-right National Rally have already stated their plans to remove whoever Macron had nominated as the next prime minister from office as soon as possible. Together they control more than a third of seats in the French National Assembly, the more powerful lower house of parliament.

National Rally President Jordan Bardella said on X that “Lecornu II” was “a bad joke, a democratic disgrace and a humiliation for the French people.”

‘Dumbfounded’

Macron reappointed Lecornu several hours after inviting political leaders from all parties represented in the National Assembly except France Unbowed and the National Rally to a high-stakes meeting at the Elysée Palace.

After the talks concluded, Macron sensed that “a path toward a compromise” capable of satisfying a majority of MPs could be charted, said an adviser who was granted anonymity for protocol reasons.

But when asked why the new prime minister would succeed where his or her predecessors had failed, the adviser could not give an answer.

Opposition politicians in the meeting left dissatisfied and looking for answers.

Marine Tondelier, the leader of the French Greens party, told reporters that she was “dumbfounded” and did not have a clear sense on the president’s next steps.

“We asked the president to take responsibility and tell us on what topics he was ready to move forward,” said Boris Vallaud, leader of the Socialist group in parliament.

Multiple attendees reported that the French president had expressed a willingness to make limited concessions on the contentious law passed two years ago that raised the retirement age. But that offer — reportedly to temporarily push back the incremental adjustment by a year — was largely viewed as insufficient.

Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure told reporters after meeting with Macron Friday — but before the announcement that Lecornu had been reappointed — that his party would “immediately” censor the government if there is “no change in course.”

This story has been updated.