Macron
appoints new French government in attempt to end political deadlock
Rivals
say president’s latest cabinet represents unwelcome continuity and hard-left
party vows to file no-confidence motion amid fraught budget talks
Agencies
Mon 6 Oct
2025 04.19 BST
French
president Emmanuel Macron has named a new government as he struggles to pull
the country out of a political crisis, while rivals threatened to topple the
lineup quickly if it failed to break with Macron’s past policies.
The new
cabinet was unveiled nearly a month after the appointment of prime minister
Sebastien Lecornu, who sought to obtain cross-party support in a deeply divided
parliament.
Lecornu –
Macron’s seventh prime minister – named Roland Lescure, a close ally of the
president, as finance minister. Lescure briefly spent time in the Socialist
party early in his career.
His
nomination on Sunday was widely seen as a nod to the left ahead of further
delicate cross-party budget negotiations but leftwing lawmakers were
unimpressed, with the hard-left France Unbowed party saying a no-confidence
motion would be filed immediately.
The first
big test for 39-year-old Lecornu, Macron’s fifth prime minister in two years,
will be a speech on Tuesday outlining his policy programme. Budget talks have
grown increasingly fraught, requiring delicate trade-offs between three
ideologically opposed blocs – Macron’s ruling centrist minority, the far right
and the left – that can fell the minority government if they unite against it.
Lecornu’s
two predecessors, Francois Bayrou and Michel Barnier, were brought down by
parliament over efforts to rein in France’s public spending at a time when
ratings agencies and investors are closely watching the country’s fiscal
deficit, the largest in the eurozone.
Lecornu
has said he appreciates the calls for a break from the past eight years under
Macron’s leadership. His political opponents said Macron’s latest cabinet
represented continuity.
“We made
it clear to the prime minister: it’s either a break with the past or a vote of
no confidence,” Jordan Bardella, president of the nationalist National Rally
party, said on X. “The government announced this evening … is all about
continuity and absolutely nothing about the break with the past that the French
people demand.”
Hard-left
lawmaker Eric Coquerel said on X: “For the third time since the July 2024
elections, Emmanuel Macron is once again imposing on us a government of losers
and policies that have been rejected at the ballot box.“
Former
finance minister Bruno Le Maire, who oversaw France’s “whatever it costs”
response to the Covid-19 pandemic, was appointed defence minister. He will now
shape French thinking on how Europe should bolster European security as the US
president, Donald Trump, demands the European Union do more to support Ukraine.
Several
key ministers remained in their posts, including Jean-Noël Barrot at the
foreign ministry, Bruno Retailleau at interior and Gérald Darmanin at justice.
France
Unbowed lawmakers reiterated their call for a presidential election – something
Macron has ruled out.
Lescure
will face a tough balancing act: securing either support or abstention from the
Socialists while preserving Macron’s pro-business legacy and keeping
conservatives and liberals onboard.
The
Franco-Canadian and former senior executive at Natixis Asset Management will
also need to be mindful of the far right’s budget sensitivities, given their
readiness to try toppling the government once more.
To win
over the Socialists, Lecornu has proposed a wealth tax long demanded by the
left, and ruled out using special powers to push the budget through parliament
without a vote. They have so far called his overtures insufficient.
“Without
a change in policy, the Socialists will vote against the government,” Socialist
party secretary general Pierre Jouvet told BFM TV.
With
Reuters and Agence France-presse
.jpeg)
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário