Sébastien Lecornu resigned on Monday after 27 days in office and just hours after announcing his new cabinet. Later that afternoon, President Emmanuel Macron said he had asked Lecornu to stay on for two more days in a desperate attempt to contain the chaos.
A close ally of Macron’s and the former defence minister, Lecornu was France’s fifth prime minister since the president’s re-election in 2022.
Lecornu blamed party political inflexibility, saying he had been “ready to compromise, but every party wanted every other party to adopt its full programme.”
“The conditions were no longer met for me to be able to exercise my functions and allow the government to go before the National Assembly tomorrow,” he said in a statement on Monday.
The 2024 snap election, which produced a hung parliament divided between almost three equal blocs – the left, the far right and Macron’s own centre-right alliance – is at the heart of the crisis.
The 2027 presidential elections are also causing concern, as Macron cannot stand again.
