Lecornu’s first 27 days on the job were brought to a screeching halt Monday, just 14 hours after he named his cabinet. Its composition of mainly Macron allies and a few conservatives infuriated opposition parties and some members of the minority coalition, making his future untenable.
The 39-year-old, who had blamed the government’s collapse in part on “partisan appetites,” said any future ministers would have to “commit to disconnect from presidential ambitions for 2027,” when the next election will be held.
Lecornu’s renomination had appeared a likely possibility with a prime minister needed in place to submit a budget to lawmakers ahead of a legislative deadline Monday, despite his repeated attemps to tamp down speculation that he would once again take the reins of government.
Had Macron appointed someone else, they would have likely needed to put forward the budget drafted by Lecornu and his team, which aims to rein in unsustainable public spending and bring down a budget deficit projected to come in at 5.4 percent of GDP this year.
But the move constitutes an incredibly risky gamble for a president nearly out of goodwill with the public and increasingly isolated among his centrist allies.
Macron’s first prime minister, Edouard Philippe, is openly calling for Macron to resign. And Gabriel Attal, the head of Macron’s own party and a former prime minister himself, had said the president should appoint someone from outside his own ranks to push back against the impression that he was “doing everything to hold on to power.”
