PARIS (Reuters) -French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu resigned on Monday, just hours after appointing his new cabinet, plunging France straight back into a political crisis it has been stuck in since 2022.
Below are the key points on what may happen next and how we got here:
MACRON’S OPTIONS: PICK A NEW PM, CALL AN ELECTION, OR QUIT
After accepting the resignation of Lecornu, French President Emmanuel Macron now faces three unpleasant options.
Firstly, he could name a new prime minister. A figure from within his own camp appears unlikely, and Macron has been unwilling to name a leftist, as they want to dilute his hard-won pension reform. A left-leaning figure would also irritate France’s right-wingers, who want more emphasis on law and order, immigration and austerity.
Macron could dissolve parliament and call fresh legislative elections, a move he has said he is unwilling to do and which could potentially lead to a far-right National Rally (RN) government if it were to win a majority.
His final option – and one he has repeatedly rejected – is to resign. It’s unclear who might win a presidential vote, but polls suggest the RN stands a good chance of victory.
2022: MACRON LOSES CONTROL OF PARLIAMENT
France’s political situation has been fragile since 2022, when Macron lost his majority in parliament.
His problems worsened when he unexpectedly called early legislative elections last year, delivering a hung parliament split between three distinct ideological blocs: his centre-right alliance, the left, and the far-right RN.
PRESSURE ON BUDGET DEEPENS THE CRISIS
Under normal circumstances, Macron’s minority government could probably have muddled through.
But two key factors complicated things.
The first is France’s budget crisis, with the country under mounting pressure to get its public spending in order. France has the euro zone’s largest deficit, and Macron has tasked a string of prime ministers with passing slimmed-down budgets.
Michel Barnier was the first to try, but he was toppled by parliament last December for his proposed budget cuts to the 2025 budget. His successor, Francois Bayrou managed to get the 2025 legislation over the line, but he was ousted last month over his proposals for the 2026 budget.
Lecornu, a Macron loyalist, was appointed after Bayrou, but he lasted less than a month as political rivals roundly rejected his cabinet appointments.
PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION ADDS EXTRA TWIST
The other key factor contributing to France’s political instability is the race to succeed Macron. The president cannot run again in 2027, and all political parties have been trying to stake out their ideological ground ahead of the vote.
That has made it nearly impossible to find common ground in parliament, leaving Macron’s prime ministers at the mercy of truculent lawmakers in no mood to compromise.
Little surprise, then, that Macron has already cycled through five prime ministers since 2022.
(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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