French Protection Minister Sebastien Lecornu, left, receives President Emmanuel Macron on the fifty fifth Worldwide Paris Airshow at Le Bourget Airport close to Paris, June 20, 2025. Macron named Lecornu the brand new prime minister on Tuesday.
Benoit Tessier/AP File
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Benoit Tessier/AP File
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron appointed his protection minister, Sébastien Lecornu, because the nation’s new prime minister after former Prime Minister François Bayrou submitted his resignation Tuesday morning.
The 39-year-old Lecornu is a Macron loyalist who has served as protection minister since 2022. He has a background in native politics, however loved a fast ascent on the nationwide stage, working as a junior minister for the setting and abroad territories earlier than being named protection minister.
Lawmakers voted down Bayrou’s financial plans in a no-confidence poll on Monday, inflicting his authorities to break down.
Earlier than Monday’s vote, Bayrou mentioned France’s huge deficit and excessive debt ranges made tough financial selections vital, and urged members of Parliament to face the details: “You have the power to topple the government, but you don’t have the power to erase reality,” he mentioned.
He misplaced the vote 364 to 194 — a decisive defeat, and larger than anticipated.
Political events on the far left and much proper celebrated Bayrou’s defeat and expressed hope {that a} substitute could be chosen from their ranks. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, head of the France Unbowed social gathering, referred to as it a “victory for the people,” and an finish to what he mentioned had been Macron’s “policies for the rich.”
Marine Le Pen, chief of the far-right Nationwide Rally, went additional, calling for brand spanking new early elections: “The new majority resulting from these elections must be able to draft a budget, so that our country has a budget.”
This was the fourth time Macron has needed to choose a brand new head of presidency previously yr.
“We’re going to enter a kind of a gray political area,” says French political journalist Thierry Arnaud, warning that any new prime minister would have the tough activity to “negotiate their way through this very difficult parliament to find a majority.”
Macron’s failed gamble
In June 2024, Macron dissolved the French Parliament after the Nationwide Rally captured a stunning 31.4% of the vote in elections for the European Parliament.
He was taking a big gamble, calling for early nationwide elections, clearly hoping the far-right breakthrough would frighten some voters into backing his personal majority, in order that he would possibly govern extra simply.
The gamble failed.
No social gathering emerged with a majority. And now, though the Nationwide Rally controls the most important voting bloc, political scientist Corinne Mellul mentioned there was little likelihood Macron would title somebody from the far-right.
“It’s out of the question,” she says. “I would say it’s a point of honor. Because in both terms, he ran on a platform of keeping the National Rally at bay and doing whatever it takes. So appointing a prime minister from the party would be acknowledging that he failed.”
Mellul believes Macron has, in a single sense, already failed, as a result of the Nationwide Rally has by no means finished higher. It is the most well-liked political social gathering in France, with a third of polled voters recurrently saying they might forged a poll for it.
Arnaud says Macron’s choices are restricted, and with an approval score of round 15%, he dangers dropping management of the scenario.
“Under those circumstances it’s very difficult to be politically in charge of what happens next in the country,” he says.
So how did Macron, who’s so energetic on the worldwide stage, get right here?
An issue of belief
Stéphane Rozès, a pollster who has labored for 3 French presidents, says Macron by no means constructed up sufficient political capital at house.
“He did not even bother to campaign in 2022,” he says, referring to the presidential election Macron gained that yr. “He ran on fear of the war in Ukraine and fear of the far right. He did not make a contract between himself and the French.”
Macron additionally pushed by way of most of his financial reforms with out widespread assist, usually passing measures utilizing an emergency clause within the structure as a substitute of counting on a majority in parliament.
The progress he did make is now coming undone, says political analyst Nicole Bacharan.
“During his first term, Macron worked very hard at reforming our economy and social system and making it more efficient and in the second term he’s breaking everything,” she says.
In France’s fractured political setting, Mellul believes it will likely be exhausting for a premier from any social gathering to get a majority to move a funds. That spells catastrophe, says Douglas Webber, emeritus professor of political science on the worldwide enterprise college lNSEAD, south of Paris.
“Without a new budget and without some kind of measures to either raise taxes or to cut spending, the French government deficit will carry on growing. And France will come under a great deal of pressure on the bond markets and have to pay a higher interest rate on any kind of money that it borrows,” says Webber.
The Bayrou authorities lasted simply 9 months. His predecessor, Michel Barnier, lasted 90 days.
Bacharan says many individuals are in despair over the uncertainty this has introduced on the nation.
“There is no trust in our politicians, no trust in our political system and no trust in the economy,” she says. And naturally no belief within the president of the Republic.”
