French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has stepped down just weeks after taking office and hours after naming a cabinet, further deepening the country’s long-running political crisis.
The French presidency said in a statement on Monday that President Emmanuel Macron has accepted his close ally’s resignation.
Appointed nearly a month ago, Lecornu had come under increasing pressure in recent weeks as he struggled to pass a budget through France’s fractured parliament amid a debt crisis.
He named his ministers on Sunday evening but quit his post hours later, making his government one of the shortest-lived in French history.
The new cabinet was due to hold its first meeting on Monday afternoon, but despite Lecornu’s promises to “break” with the strategy of his unpopular predecessor, François Bayrou, the lineup of new ministers angered opponents and allies alike. Many figures in Lecornu’s cabinet had served in the previous government.
“I was ready to compromise, but each political party wanted the other political party to adopt its entire program,” Lecornu said outside the prime minister’s office.
The French Parliament has been divided between far-right and far-left blocs since Macron announced snap elections in 2024.
Lecornu was Macron’s fifth prime minister in the past two years, and his sudden resignation sparked opposition calls for the president to step down and a new election to be held.
Marine Le Pen, a leading far-right figure and member of the National Rally party, the largest in parliament, who called Lecornu’s cabinet “pathetic”, told local media, “The only wise decision is to return to the polls.”
That message was echoed by party leader Jordan Bardella, who said, “National Rally will be ready to assume its responsibilities.”
The leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, also called for Macron to step down, while François-Xavier Bellamy, who heads the much smaller right-wing Republicans party, which worked with Macron to staff his cabinet, said his party had nothing “to fear from a dissolution” of parliament.
The prospect of France not passing a budget has caused financial jitters.
The benchmark CAC 40 index of blue chip stocks dropped more than 2 percent after the news of Lecornu’s resignation broke.
(Al Jazeera)
