Rather than allowing French voters to select their next government, President Macron appointed another loyalist to the Hôtel Matignon just hours after receiving the resignation of Prime Minister François Bayrou.
Armed Services Minister Sébastien Lecornu has been appointed as the next prime minister of France, the third such appointment by President Macron over the past year, Le Figaro reports.
Previously a member of the centre-right Les Républicains, the neo-liberal Lecornu joined Macron’s Renaissance faction in 2017 and has served in the cabinet of multiple prime ministers. He will become the fifth prime minister since President Macron was reelected for a second five-year term in 2022.
Commenting on his elevation, Lecornu said: “The President of the Republic has entrusted me with the task of building a Government with a clear direction: the defense of our independence and our power, the service of the French people, and political and institutional stability for the unity of the country.
“I wish to thank him for the confidence he has shown me by appointing me Prime Minister. I salute François Bayrou for the courage he demonstrated in defending his convictions to the very end.”
The prompt appointment of Lecornu, less than 24 hours after the National Assembly voted to oust fellow Macron loyalist Bayrou from power, comes despite Renaissance parliamentary leader and former PM Gabriel Attal advocating for the president to appoint a mediator to negotiate between the deeply divided parties in the French parliament to find a consensus candidate to implement an agreed-upon budget.
Lecornu faces an uphill battle, with his predecessors Bayrou and Barnier both failing to find a compromise to balance France’s books, given the three-way split in the National Assembly resulting from President Macron’s synical election pact with the leftist New Popular Front during the second round of last year’s legislative elections to keep Marine Le Pen’s National Rally from taking control of the parliament.
Le Pen’s populist faction has advocated for Macron to return to the voters to break the logjam in the National Assembly with fresh legislative elections. However, it appears that the embattled president is hesitant to face voters, given his dwindling levels of support.
Nevertheless, Le Pen still predicted that elections are forthcoming and that her deputy, Jordan Bardella, will become the next Prime Minister of France.
“The President is firing the last cartridge of Macronism, bunkered down with his little square of loyalists. After the inevitable future legislative elections, the Prime Minister will be called Jordan Bardella,” she said.
Bardella, the charismatic 29-year-old president of the National Rally, added: “Emmanuel Macron’s motto: you don’t change a losing team. How could a loyal supporter of the President break with the policy he has been pursuing for eight years?
“Our principles do not waver, and the interest of the French people remains our sole compass. It is not a matter of individuals or casting, but of the policy pursued: we will judge – without illusion – the new Prime Minister based on evidence, on his actions, on his directions for providing France with a budget, and this in light of our red lines.
“We are at his disposal to remind him of them, in the name of the millions of French people who await and hope for a change.”
Meanwhile, some on the political left — enraged that Macron did not select a prime minister from their ranks to replace Bayrou — are calling for mass demonstrations against the new government. Conveniently for the left, large-scale labour union strikes across France were already scheduled for Wednesday, potentially laying the groundwork for widespread unrest in the coming days.
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