Macron appoints ally Lecornu as France's new prime minister

Samy Adghirni, James Regan and William Horobin, Bloomberg News on Sep 9, 2025

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President Emmanuel Macron named Sebastien Lecornu France’s new prime minister, tapping a longtime ally to pick up the mantle of trying to pass a budget through a divided parliament.

Lecornu, who served as defense minister in the previous cabinet, will become the country’s fifth prime minister in two years. The last two premiers were ousted after trying to pass budgets that would sharply reduce France’s deficit, the widest in the euro area.

Lawmakers across the political spectrum have rejected a continuation of Macron’s policies and have called for new legislative elections. Lecornu’s minority government will need tacit support from the left or the right to pass a 2026 budget and survive a possible no-confidence motion.

“Regardless of who’s appointed, it’s going to be extremely complicated,” Gesine Weber, a Paris-based research analyst at the German Marshall Fund, said in an interview. “We’re facing the same problem as last year, where rival parties show little willingness for concessions.”

Macron tasked Lecornu with “consulting the political forces in parliament with a view to adopting a budget,” after which he would propose the formation of a new government. The current cabinet will continue in a caretaker capacity in the meantime.

Lecornu, 39, is the only minister to have served in government uninterrupted since Macron became president in 2017. He steps into the premiership after a coalition of far-right and left-wing lawmakers voted to oust Francois Bayrou from office after he called a confidence motion in a failed attempt to rally support for his unpopular budget reforms.

Bayrou was pushing for a budget that would have narrowed France’s 2026 deficit to 4.6% of economic output from an expected 5.4% this year.

France’s 2026 budget will be one of the first major tests for the incoming premier, who, in order to avoid the same fate as his predecessors, will need to quickly rewrite fiscal plans to get at least implicit support from some of Macron’s political adversaries.

The National Rally’s Marine Le Pen wrote in a social media post Tuesday that Macron had fired his last shot in naming Lecornu and that new parliamentary elections were inevitable. The Socialist party said in a statement that none of its lawmakers would take part in Macron’s approach.

“This is a slap in the face for parliament,” Socialist lawmaker Philippe Brun told BFM TV. “This is a slap in the face for voters.”

The current political crisis comes a year after Macron called an ill-fated snap election to consolidate centrist power in the face of a rising far right. That split parliament into three feuding blocs: the National Rally, which is the largest single party in the lower house, a left-wing bloc and a weakened center that backs Macron.

Since then, France’s CAC 40 Index — home of bellwethers such as LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, Airbus SE and L’Oreal SA — has fallen 3.2%, compared with a 5.5% gain for the Stoxx Europe 600 Index and a 25% rise in Germany’s DAX Index, excluding dividends.

The economy has shown surprising resilience to the political upheaval in recent months, with indicators showing manufacturing has overcome a prolonged slump and growth beating expectations in the second quarter. However, a Bank of France survey conducted around Bayrou’s announcement of a confidence vote showed a sharp increase in uncertainty among business leaders, comparable to the spike seen after Macron dissolved parliament.

A former member of the center-right Republicans, Lecornu is among the most vocal supporters of Macron’s efforts to flex France’s military muscle, which included a sharp increase in the army’s budget, and pledges to actively engage in protecting Ukraine.

Lecornu is also known to have warm ties with figures on the French far right, including with Le Pen. But National Rally leaders haven’t given any indication yet that they would support the incoming prime minister.

“We will judge the new prime minister — without any illusions — on his actions, his policies for France’s budget, and whether they meet our red lines,” Bardella wrote on social media.

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