France's newly reappointed Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu unveiled on Sunday night a government made up of politicians and technicians little known to the general public and civil society to try to lead France out of unprecedented political instability.
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As if to ward off the threat of immediate censorship, Mr. Lecornu announced that this new leader “has been appointed to give France a budget before the end of the year.”
It is macronist Roland Lescure who now faces the difficult task of presenting a draft budget for 2026 acceptable to parliament, while the country's debt reaches 3,300 billion euros, more than 115% of GDP.
Mr Lecornu, who resigned on Monday a day after announcing his first government and was then reappointed on Friday by President Emmanuel Macron, appears to have learned from last week when he angered the political class by reappointing most of his predecessor Francois Bayrou's ministers and returning former finance minister Bruno Le Maire to the armed forces.
Forced to urgently form a new government in order to present a draft budget at the beginning of the week, Mr. Lecornu, of course, retained Gérald Darmanin in the field of justice and Jean-Noël Barrault in the field of foreign affairs, as well as Rachida Dati in the cultural field.
However, it is the Prefect of Paris, Laurent Nunez, who will replace the leader of the right-wing Republican party (LR), Bruno Retaillo, in the Ministry of the Interior. The outgoing head of the state railway company SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou, takes over as head of the Ministry of Labour.
Among others in the Lecornu 2 government, the ecological transition is entrusted to the former president of the NGO WWF France Monique Barbue, Emmanuel Macron's special envoy to the One Planet Summit on Biodiversity in 2020-2021. And Edouard Geffray, the national education representative who replaced former Prime Minister Elisabeth Bourne.
“Only one thing matters: the interests of the country,” assured Mr. Lecornu at X, thanking the ministers “who participate in this government with complete freedom, going beyond personal and party interests.”
The question now is how long this executive will last as the country endures an unprecedented period of political instability since the dissolution of the National Assembly in June 2024, which left the chamber without a majority, divided between the left, the center-right and the far right.
Fragile future
Since then, four prime ministers have succeeded each other.
First of all, France is running out of time to have a budget for 2026: according to the Constitution, parliament must have at least 70 days to consider the draft budget until December 31.
As Mr Macron is expected in Egypt on Monday to attend the Gaza “Peace Summit”, the text will be presented to the Council of Ministers on Tuesday morning.
The future of this government is very fragile: with the exception of the Socialist Party, everyone on the left has already called for immediate censorship, as have the National Rally (RN, far right) and its allies.
But the Socialist group (69 deputies) is also threatening censorship, irritated by four weeks of fruitless negotiations over its demands. In particular, he wants an immediate and complete suspension of the pension reform, the most emblematic of Macron's second five-year term, and took force in 2023 to lower the legal retirement age to 64 despite months of demonstrations.
For its part, the LR party assured the government of its “textual support” in parliament, which is tantamount to the absence of censorship.
A possible new dissolution of the Assembly by Mr Macron, who has not publicly ruled out this option, could benefit the RN according to polls, which were however largely wrong on this issue in 2024.
