French President Emmanuel Macron will nominate a new prime minister before Friday evening (October 10), following the resignation of Sébastien Lecornu.
However, there is little clarity on who will be appointed to the role, with any compromise between parties in the fractured Assemblée nationale looking increasingly difficult to find.
“The president of the Republic thanks Sébastien Lecornu for the work carried out over the past 48 hours,” said the announcement.
Mr Lecornu handed in his resignation on Monday, but was given an additional two days to attempt to find a compromise between parties that would help him govern.
The president “has taken note of [Mr Lecornu’s] conclusions,” the statement added.
These are “a majority of deputies against dissolving the Assemblée nationale, the existence of a stability platform, and a possible path to adopting a budget by December 31.”
Mr Lecornu backs president
The announcement from the Elysée – the residence and office of the president – comes amid a week of political chaos following Mr Lecornu’s resignation on Monday after a record-short stint of 27 days as prime minister.
Mr Lecornu explained his decision in a televised interview last night (October 8) on France 2, where he reaffirmed his support for the president and said Mr Macron should not listen to increasing calls from across the political spectrum to resign.
It is “not the time to change,” France’s president said Mr Lecornu, despite calls from several major politicians including former prime minister Edouard Philippe, for Mr Macron to step down.
Previously Minister for the Armed Forces, Mr Lecornu cited the current geopolitical instability across the world and said “this presidential institution must be protected [and] preserved.”
Mr Lecornu also said that calls for new legislative elections to return a new set of MPs to the Assemblée nationale was potentially ‘suicidal’ and that despite loud calls, particularly from the far-right, the idea was not supported by most MPs.
“A [new] dissolution would lead to the same result and a headlong rush toward a deadlock, which could be more definitive,” than the current make-up, which is divided roughly into thirds between far-left and left, centre and right, and far-right groups.
Despite the chaos, Mr Lecornu believes “a majority of political parties are ready to agree on a common budget,” the first draft of which will be introduced at the Assemblée on Monday (October 13).
It is expected to be subject to amendments.
Its final form must pass through both the Assemblée and Senate and be promulgated by the president before December 31 to avoid France going an unprecedented second year without a budget in place.
Despite the potential longevity of the current crisis, all eyes will soon be fixed upon agreeing on a budget, as the level of France’s public debt took centre stage under former prime minister François Bayrou.
Who could be the next prime minister? And how long will they last?
The short announcement from the Elysée gave no hint of this, but the list of potential candidates is dwindling.
With the next appointment to be Mr Macron’s eighth – a record under the Fifth Republic – the role looks to be a challenge that even the most loyal of his allies may shy away from.
An appointment from outside the Macronist camp is all but impossible due to the hostility against the president from all sides.
Even within the centrist group some, such as former prime minister Gabriel Attal, seem to have lost faith in the president.
Once a prime minister is appointed, crafting a government from the various political factions looks even more challenging now than when Mr Lecornu was appointed in September.
The far-left and the far-right have consistently refused to work with the government and are now both committed to ‘censuring’ (i.e voting against and initiating votes of no confidence) against any Macronist-led coalition.
Formerly, the far-right were seen as providing conditional support (by promising not to join votes of no confidence), which some political commentators argue caused Mr Macron to lean to the right with appointments and policies over the last year.
A chance for the Socialists and a reversal of pension reform?
The Socialists and their 68 MPs have been buoyed by their potential to join a ‘Republican’ coalition of non-extreme parties and place leftist agendas on the table, such as a wealth tax.
Although other leftist parties such as La France Insoumise have been blocked from any coalition, this is not the case for the centre-left, who have all but abandoned the Nouveau Front Populaire leftist alliance from the 2024 legislative elections to attempt to find a compromise with the government.
However, the Socialist party has failed to reach sufficient agreement with any of the previous three prime ministers to provide parliamentary backing.
In a last-ditch attempt to gain the party's support, Mr Lecornu offered a potential suspension of the 2023 pension reform which increased the retirement age in France to 64.
It is a fiercely divisive topic within the Macronist camp.
Former Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, who initially passed the measure, is partially open to reversing the retirement age increase until 2027 when the next presidential election takes place.
However many others are vehemently against it, as reversal of the reform would add at least €10 billion to France’s deficit according to an impact study by the Cour des Comptes at the start of this year.
Despite hesitation to ally with the left, some Macronist allies including resigning Ecological Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher are open to trying to work with the Socialists in a bid to form a government.
For its part, the Socialist Party is now pushing for a ‘cohabitation’ government and the appointment of a leftist prime minister, as opposed to the party propping up a centrist government.
Les Républicains out of the fold
Bruno Retailleau, resigning Interior Minister and head of the right-wing Les Républicains, part of the current governing alliance and central to the dispute that led to Mr Lecornu’s resignation, has put a stop to any notion of a ‘Republican’ alliance between the former major powers of the Assemblée.
He said that any attempt to work with the Socialists would see his party walk out of government.
He added that the appointment of a ‘Macronist’ prime minister would also see his party leave the current coalition, all but confirming they will not be a part of the next government.
A Macronist-Socialist alliance would still fail to reach the threshold of a majority in the Assemblée (289 MPs out of 577).
This would leave them open to votes of no confidence from the far-left and far-right, as well as lacking the required support to pass a budget.
Elisabeth Borne said this morning that an agreement between Les Républicains and the Socialists was the only way out of the current impasse.
A technocrat government?
The prime minister does not need to be a sitting MP, nor indeed any member of a political party, however.
A leading civil servant can be appointed to the role, as was the case in 2005 with Dominique de Villepin.
Similar to a recent case in Italy, a ‘technocratic’ government that falls outside of traditional political lines may receive enough support to govern on a basis of expertise to pass through the 2026 budget under extraordinary circumstances.
It may potentially last until the end of Mr Macron’s second term in 2027, at which point new presidential and legislative elections will take place.
Such an appointment however would still need to find enough support in the Assemblée to not be voted down.
