French PM Lecornu resigns after less than a month in office
France’s new prime minister resigned on Monday after less than a month in office, sinking the country further into a political crisis and piling pressure on President Emmanuel Macron to find a way out of the deadlock. Sebastien Lecornu stepped down just 14 hours after naming his government, and had been due to hold his…
France’s new prime minister resigned on Monday after less than a month in office, sinking the country further into a political crisis and piling pressure on President Emmanuel Macron to find a way out of the deadlock.
Sebastien Lecornu stepped down just 14 hours after naming his government, and had been due to hold his first cabinet meeting in the afternoon. However, his new government had raised hackles across the spectrum before ministers even entered their new offices, and he risked an immediate no confidence vote in parliament this week.
Lecornu’s 27-day stint in office was the shortest ever for a prime minister in modern France.
“The conditions were not fulfilled for me to carry out my function as prime minister,” Lecornu said, denouncing the “partisan appetites” of factions who he said had forced his resignation.
With the instability in France causing tremors across Europe, a German government spokesman said a “stable France” was an “important contribution to stability in Europe”.
Lecornu’s resignation compounds a political crisis that has rocked France for more than a year, after centrist Macron called legislative elections in the summer of 2024, which ended in a hung parliament.
