Macron Picks Loyalist as France’s New Prime Minister

 

Macron Picks Loyalist as France’s New Prime Minister

 

President Emmanuel Macron’s appointment of Sébastien Lecornu, the departing defense minister, after the government collapsed reflects the pressure Mr. Macron faces to get a budget passed.

 

Benoit Tessier

Aurelien Breeden

By Aurelien Breeden

Reporting from Paris

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/world/europe/france-macron-prime-minister-lecornu.html

Sept. 9, 2025

 

President Emmanuel Macron of France on Tuesday chose Sébastien Lecornu, the departing defense minister and a loyal ally, to be France’s next prime minister, a little over 24 hours after the country’s government collapsed on a no-confidence vote.

 

The swift appointment, after Mr. Lecornu’s immediate predecessor, François Bayrou, was forced to resign, reflects the immense pressure Mr. Macron faces. He is struggling to control France’s political turmoil and to get a crucial budget passed by the end of the year to rein in the country’s ballooning debt.

 

The choice of Mr. Lecornu — a key supporter of Mr. Macron who is the only minister to have been in every cabinet since 2017 — was one of comfort for the French president.

 

The move also suggested that Mr. Macron wanted to avoid a vacancy of power at the highest levels of government ahead of street protests, aimed against him and proposed austerity measures, that are expected on Wednesday.

 

Mr. Lecornu, a 39-year-old centrist whose political career originated on the right, is now the fifth prime minister of Mr. Macron’s second term, which started in 2022. He is also the third since the snap parliamentary elections that Mr. Macron called last year. The abrupt shifts represent a level of persistent instability that is unheard-of in France’s modern-day Fifth Republic.

 

Mr. Macron bucked speculation that he might appoint a prime minister outside his own political camp. But in doing so, his opponents say, he risked angering an electorate that has soured on him after eight years in power and is increasingly disillusioned with the country’s politics.

 

“He is running the risk of legitimate social unrest and institutional gridlock in the country,” the Socialist Party said in a statement.

 

Still, Mr. Macron’s office said that he had asked Mr. Lecornu to consult the political forces represented in Parliament “in view of adopting a budget for the nation and building the agreements essential for decisions in the coming months” — suggesting that he was open to deals with other political forces.

 

After those discussions, Mr. Lecornu will be asked to propose members of the new cabinet, the statement added. In France, the prime minister suggests cabinet ministers and the president appoints them.

 

Mr. Lecornu, who is scheduled to take office on Wednesday, said on social media that Mr. Macron had given him a clear agenda: “the defense of our independence and of our power, service to the French people, and political and institutional stability for the unity of the country.”

 

The presidency is, in many ways, France’s most powerful political office. But prime ministers and their cabinets, who answer to the National Assembly, are formally in charge of domestic policy, including the budget, and they run the country on a day-to-day basis.

 

Stability has been elusive in France since the snap elections last year, which left the lower house of Parliament deadlocked among a collection of left-wing parties, a tenuous center-right coalition and a nationalist, anti-immigrant far right.

 

Mr. Bayrou, another centrist ally of Mr. Macron’s who had became prime minister just nine months ago, failed a confidence vote that he had hoped would jolt the country into understanding the gravity of the country’s financial woes and the necessity of at least $51 billion in cost cutting. Mr. Bayrou’s predecessor, who lasted only three months, was ejected over a budget vote as well.

 

Whether Mr. Lecornu will fare better is an open question. He is described in profiles in the French news media as discreet and adept at political maneuvering, but that political equation in the lower house remains the same.

 

Mainstream conservative welcomed Mr. Lecornu’s appointment. But opponents on the left reacted furiously, calling it a “provocation.” Many of them still fume that Mr. Macron did not pick one of their own as prime minister after they came out ahead in seat numbers after last year’s snap election.

 

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the longtime leader of the far-left party France Unbowed — which is pushing for Mr. Macron to resign — said on social media that “only the departure of Macron himself can put an end to this sad comedy of contempt for Parliament, voters and political decency.”

 

Mr. Lecornu, originally a member of the Republicans, France’s mainstream conservative party, defected to Mr. Macron’s party in 2017, at the start of the French president’s first term. He has held several electoral offices in Normandy and is one of the president’s closest and most loyal allies.

 

As defense minister since 2022, he was a vocal defender of Mr. Macron’s vision of a sovereign and more autonomous Europe, one that can no longer count on the United States and that must increase its military spending.

 

Jordan Bardella, the president of the nationalist, anti-immigrant party National Rally, said it would not move to topple Mr. Lecornu immediately and would judge him on his merits. That gives the new prime minister a bit of reprieve, as only the joined votes of the left and the far right would be enough to oust him.

 

But Mr. Bardella mocked Mr. Macron’s choice as out of touch. The National Rally has been pushing Mr. Macron to call new parliamentary elections, but the French president has ruled that out so far.

 

“Emmanuel Macron’s motto: you don’t change a losing team,” Mr. Bardella wrote on social media. “How could a loyal supporter of the President break with the policy he has been pursuing for eight years?”

 

Catherine Porter contributed reporting.

 

Aurelien Breeden is a reporter for The Times in Paris, covering news from France.