French President Emmanuel Macron has reappointed Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to his post, despite accepting his resignation Monday following the collapse of his overnight government.
“The president of the republic has named Mr Sébastien Lecornu prime minister and has charged him with forming a government,” the Élysée Palace said in a statement Friday.
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Lecornu faced broad criticism for his choice of ministers in Sunday night’s cabinet. After promising a break with the past two prime ministers, amid a divided political landscape in France, he announced a ministerial selection that featured more Macron allies than in the president’s very first cabinet in 2017.
Lecornu took nearly a month to name his first short-lived cabinet. Many in France will be closely following his choice of colleagues second-time round.
On Sunday evening, key ministers in Lecornu’s cabinet were unveiled, and most of them were holdovers from his predecessor’s government — which was toppled last month — and the two most prominent new faces had previously held ministerial posts during Macron’s tenure.
Opposition parties who had expressed openness to working with Lecornu on a budget for next year and potential minority coalition partners were furious. They had made it clear they were looking for signals that Lecornu would be doing things differently after he promised a “break” from Macron’s previous governments.
Bruno Retailleau, who leads a conservative party that was a key coalition partner of recent minority governments, expressed his displeasure in a post on X and said his party would be charting a path forward the next morning.
The next morning, Macron’s office announced that he had accepted the resignation of Lecornu and his government after a grand total of 14 hours on the job.
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The crisis that kicked off the week — the resignation of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu and his newly appointed ministers after just 14 hours — is still in motion, with Macron set to name a replacement for Lecornu on Friday, according to his office.
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Markets are concerned that France, the eurozone’s second largest economy, has become so ungovernable that it can’t even pay its bills.
France borrowed heavily during the pandemic and is now sitting on €3.4 trillion worth of debt and looking at a projected budget deficit of 5.4 percent of gross domestic product this year.
Everyone agrees the current path isn’t sustainable, but cutting spending is particularly difficult in France, where people remain deeply attached to the country’s generous social welfare system. Paris is also committed to spending on reindustrialization, transitioning to green energy and rebuilding its military capabilities in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and fears of American military retrenchment.
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European Union rules require member states to keep budget deficits below 3 percent of GDP, a limit France continues to run afoul of. Paris has submitted a plan to Brussels to get back on track by 2029, but it’s highly unlikely lawmakers will pass a budget in time this year to stick to that timeline.
If France continues to flout the 3 percent figure themselves, other EU member states might start having second thoughts about playing by the rules themselves.
In shock move, French president reappoints prime minister who quit Monday
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