French government quits just hours after being appointed, deepening political crisis
The far-right National Rally immediately urges President Macron to call a snap parliamentary election
[PARIS] France’s new Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu and his government resigned on Monday (Oct 6), hours after Lecornu announced his Cabinet line-up, in a major deepening of France’s political crisis that drove stocks and the euro sharply lower.
The swift, unexpected resignation came after allies and foes alike threatened to topple the new government, with Lecornu saying that meant he could not do his job.
Opposition parties immediately urged President Emmanuel Macron to resign, or call a snap parliamentary election, saying there was no other way out of the crisis.
Lecornu, who was Macron’s fifth prime minister in two years, was prime minister for only 27 days. His government lasted 14 hours, making it the shortest-lived in modern French history at a time when parliament is deeply divided and the eurozone’s second-largest economy is struggling to put its finances in order.
New Cabinet line-up angered opponents
After weeks of consultations with political parties across the board, Lecornu, a close ally of Macron, had appointed his ministers on Sunday; they had been set to hold their first meeting on Monday afternoon.
But the new Cabinet line-up angered opponents and allies alike, who either found it too right-wing or not sufficiently so, raising questions on how long it could last, with no group holding a majority in a fragmented parliament.
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Lecornu handed his resignation to Macron, who accepted it.
French politics has become increasingly unstable since Macron’s re-election in 2022 for want of any party or grouping holding a parliamentary majority.
Opposition wants snap elections
Macron’s decision to call a snap parliamentary election last year deepened the crisis by producing an even more fragmented parliament.
The centrist president could now call new snap elections, resign or try to appoint yet another prime minister. In past months, Macron, whose mandate runs until May 2027, has repeatedly ruled out the first two options. He is yet to react publicly to Lecornu’s resignation.
“There can be no return to stability without a return to the polls and the dissolution of the National Assembly,” National Rally leader Jordan Bardella said after Lecornu resigned. Mathilde Panot, of the hard-left France Unbowed, said: “Lecornu resigns. Three prime ministers defeated in less than a year. The countdown has begun. Macron must go.”
French stocks and euro fall
Paris’ US$3 trillion CAC 40 dropped by as much as 2 per cent, making it the worst-performing major index in Europe, as banking shares came under heavy fire.
The euro slid 0.7 per cent on the day to US$1.1665.
Deep instability
France has rarely suffered a political crisis so deep since the creation in 1958 of the Fifth Republic, the current system of government.
The 1958 Constitution was designed to ensure stable governance by creating a powerful and highly centralised president endowed with a strong majority in parliament, and to avoid the instability of the periods immediately before and after World War II.
Instead, Macron, who in his ascent to power in 2017 reshaped the political landscape, has found himself struggling with a fragmented parliament where the centre no longer holds the balance and the far-right and hard-left hold sway.
France is not used to building coalitions and finding consensus.
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