PARIS – A month after his appointment, Sébastien Lecornu unveiled on Sunday evening a large part of his government, which bears a striking resemblance to that of his predecessor, François Bayrou. Enough to antagonise the opposition ahead of the Prime Minister’s first address, scheduled for Tuesday afternoon in the National Assembly.
Many heavyweights from the previous team have been retained.
In order of protocol, the Minister of Education, Élisabeth Borne, remains in her post, as does Manuel Valls at Overseas France.
The staunchly right-wing President of Les Républicains (LR), Bruno Retailleau, also keeps the Interior Ministry, Gérald Darmanin the Ministry of Justice, Annie Genevard Agriculture, Catherine Vautrin the Ministry of Labour, and Jean-Noël Barrot the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.
The Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, who is due to stand trial for corruption and influence peddling next September, also remains in office.
Among the new arrivals, Macron ally Roland Lescure has been appointed Minister for the Economy, and will face the heavy task of negotiating the 2026 budget.
The most controversial appointment is undoubtedly that of former Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire at the Ministry of the Armed Forces. Having served from 2017 to 2024, he had been accused of plunging France’s public finances deep into deficit. Le Maire had previously announced his withdrawal from political life.
This first list, which is expected to be completed in the coming days, has, as expected, been sharply criticised by opposition parties. The president of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN), Jordan Bardella, deplored a government that “has all the hallmarks of continuity”, once again threatening to table an immediate motion of no confidence against the new executive.
“All that for this?” quipped Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI). “Elections for nothing, two censures for nothing? It won’t hold,” he added.
A government coalition as fragile as ever
During the night from Saturday to Sunday, the Prime Minister sent a “government roadmap” to centrist and right-wing parties – Renaissance, LR, Modem, Horizons and the Union of Democrats and Independents – in an attempt to consolidate the fragile coalition on which his predecessors Michel Barnier and François Bayrou had already relied.
Lecornu admitted that he only commanded “a very relative majority” and urged his allies to “make compromises with other political forces”. Together, the parties of the so-called “central bloc” can muster only 210 deputies out of the 577 in the Assembly, leaving them under constant threat of being toppled once again.
The Prime Minister also outlined the main priorities of his policy, with the foremost being to “equip France with a budget for the year 2026, to ensure the country’s stability”. He plans to make savings “mainly” through a reduction in public spending, while also pledging to respond to the “demand for fiscal fairness” expressed by French citizens.
In a bid to avoid censure, Lecornu had also promised before the weekend not to invoke Article 49.3 of the Constitution – which allows legislation to pass without a parliamentary vote – leaving members of the National Assembly free to amend his initial budget proposals.
This gesture, however, does not appear to have convinced Socialist Party (PS) leader Olivier Faure, who said over the weekend that the country was “heading straight for a censure” if the Prime Minister persisted in presenting a “copy-and-paste” of Bayrou’s budget. The latter was toppled in early September after pushing through €44 billion in spending cuts to bring the deficit down to 4.6% by 2026.
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