France’s new PM takes office amid anti-government protests

PARIS – France’s new Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu pledged on Sept 10 to find creative ways to work with rivals to pass a debt-slimming budget while also promising new policy directions after taking office on a day of sprawling anti-government protests.

President Emmanuel Macron

picked Mr Lecornu

to be his fifth prime minister in two years on Sept 9, naming a loyalist who is unlikely to rip up his pro-business economic agenda.

Mr Lecornu replaced Mr Francois Bayrou, who was

ousted in a parliamentary vote

on Sept 8 over his plans to trim France’s outsized budget deficit, the biggest in the euro zone.

Mr Lecornu, most recently defence minister, said in a brief speech after a handover ceremony that the government would need “to be more creative, sometimes more technical, more serious” in how it works with the opposition.

But he also said “ruptures will be necessary”.

His immediate challenge will be how to steer a streamlined 2026 budget through Parliament, which is split into three distinct ideological blocs.

Parties broadly agree on the need to slash France’s deficit, which reached 5.8 per cent of gross domestic product in 2024, but not on how to do it.

Mr Lecornu has to send a full draft of the text to Parliament by Oct 7, although there is some wiggle room until Oct 13, after which lawmakers will run out of time to pass the budget by year’s end.

Reactions to his appointment underscore the challenge he faces.

While the hard-left said it would seek to topple him with an immediate no-confidence motion, the far-right National Rally (RN) signalled tentative willingness to work with him on the budget – as long as its budgetary demands are met.

The RN is France’s largest parliamentary party and a crucial factor in any potential no-confidence motion.

Still, Mr Lecornu is seen as the closest member of Mr Macron’s circle to the RN, having dined with RN president Jordan Bardella in 2024.

Mr Bardella, reacting to Mr Lecornu’s speech, said the new Prime Minister “is in a very precarious position”.

Using the same word used by Mr Lecornu in his speech, Mr Bardella said he wanted to see the new government adopt RN concerns: “Either there’s a rupture, or there’s a no-confidence motion.”

‘Block Everything’ protests

Mr Lecornu’s other – more complicated – path to passing the budget involves uniting the Socialists, who want to water down budget cuts and tax the rich, with his former party The Republicans dead-set against any tax rises.

Mr Macron, in an unusual step, called Socialist party leader Olivier Faure on Sept 9 to tell him he would not be appointing a leftist as prime minister.

On Sept 10, Mr Faure appeared to leave the door ajar to working with Mr Lecornu, while also saying he would support a no-confidence measure if he felt the government did not take on board its budgetary priorities.

Thousands of people across France, meanwhile, took to the streets as part of so-called Block Everything protests, an expression of broad discontent with Mr Macron, proposed budget cuts and the entire political class.

“Anger has been rumbling for months, even years,” said Mr Daniel Bretones, a union member protesting in Marseille. “We’re on the fifth prime minister under Macron’s second term, and it has never changed anything.” REUTERS