Outgoing French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, who this morning presented the resignation of his government to the French President, reacts after making a statement at the Hotel Matignon in Paris on October 6, 2025.
Stephane Mahé | Episode | Getty Images
French President Emmanuel Macron appointed and reappointed Sebastien Lecornu as prime minister on Friday after he resigned earlier this week, hoping the loyalist can gain enough support from the deeply divided parliament to pass a 2026 budget.
By mentioning Lecornu by name, Macron, 47, risks the wrath of his political rivals, who have argued that the best way out of the country's deepest political crisis in decades was for Macron to hold early parliamentary elections or resign.
Lecornu's immediate task will be to deliver a budget to parliament by the end of Monday.
“I accept – as a matter of duty – the mission entrusted to me by the President of the Republic to do everything possible to provide France with a budget by the end of the year and to address the daily life problems of our fellow citizens,” Lecornu wrote on X.
“We must put an end to this political crisis that is irritating the French people and to this instability that is damaging France's image and interests.”
Macron previously convened a meeting of mainstream party leaders to rally support for his choice. Left-wing leaders expressed dismay that Macron would not choose a prime minister from their ranks. Their outraged response suggested that his future government might be as vulnerable as those that preceded it.
A new collapsed government would increase the chance that Macron will call early elections, a scenario from which the far right benefits most.
“We do not want parliament to be dissolved, but we are not afraid either,” Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure told reporters as he left the meeting.
France's political turmoil, which has hit growth and spooked financial markets, was driven in large part by Macron's decision last year to hold parliamentary elections, a gamble that led to a divided parliament between three ideologically opposed blocs.
The country's push to get its finances in order, which will require spending cuts or tax increases that no party can agree on, has only worsened the malaise. This also applies to the maneuvering of political leaders who want to succeed Macron in the 2027 presidential elections.
If the National Assembly cannot agree on a budget within the given time, emergency legislation may be needed to keep the country running next year with a rollover budget.
Macron excluded Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN) and the far-left France Unbowed (LFI) from the meeting of party leaders.
RN resident Jordan Bardella said the president's strategy was aimed at avoiding parliamentary elections rather than defending the interests of the French people.
“The RN is honored not to have been invited. We are not for sale to people around Macron,” Bardella wrote on X.
The country's central bank chief, François Villeroy de Galhau, predicted on Friday that the current political uncertainty would cost the economy 0.2 percentage points of gross domestic product. Business sentiment suffered, but the economy was generally fine, he said.
“Uncertainty is… the biggest enemy of growth,” Villeroy told RTL radio.
The fraught budget negotiations this year and last, as France tries to rein in its public finances and tame a yawning budget deficit, have cost Macron three prime ministers in less than 12 months.
At the heart of the latest budget negotiations has been the left's desire to repeal Macron's 2023 pension reforms, which raised the retirement age and taxed the rich more heavily. These demands are difficult to reconcile with the conservatives, whose support Macron also needs to pass a budget.
During the meeting, Macron offered to postpone the increase in the retirement age to 64 by one year until 2028. Green leader Marine Tondelier called the concession insufficient.
Villeroy said it would be preferable if the deficit did not exceed 4.8% of GDP in 2026. The deficit is expected to reach 5.4% this year, almost double the European Union ceiling.
Macron's penultimate prime minister, Francois Bayrou, was ousted by the National Assembly over his plans for 44 billion euros in cuts to reduce the deficit to 4.6% of GDP.
