Monsieur Lecornu's Second Shot!

French government Lecornu II has made it beyond the one-week goalpost!

Sébastien Lecornu´s second attempt as head of government is off to a better start than his first mandate, which ended on October 6, given his voluntary abduction and the consequent dissolution of the government (after 14 hours of effective governance). By accepting a second mandate offered by President Macron on  Friday, Oct. 10, and presenting his cabinet on Sunday, Oct. 12,  Lecornu is the first French prime minister to be literally “resurrected.” His resurrection notably occurred without the usual divine intervention, but because La Republique (Emperor Macron) wished so.

As French prime minister, Lecornu is now imbued with the rather ungrateful task of reconciling divided parliamentarians and  maneuvering France out of the most difficult public finance crisis the Fifth Republic has known so far.

This gigantesque task, involving drastic public spending cuts to ensure a fiscal deficit in line with the EU ceiling of 3 percent for 2029, is complicated by the categorical, deconstructive  refusal to cooperate from both outer wings of parliament. This unwillingness to be governed by centrist Lecornu, culminated last Thursday, Oct. 16,  in two failed confidence votes, scheduled by left-wing La France Insoumise (LFI) and right-wing Rassemblement National (RN). Government Lecornu II, in office for four days then, narrowly survived these votes and didn’t collapse, again, on Thursday. 

This political satire frankly begs the polite question: why does the political panorama of La Grande Nation resemble that of a banana republic, with the executive being shakier and more short-lived than a TikTok trend?

The culprit for this dilemma, spoiler alert, is not brave Sébastien Lecornu. According to a post on X, for him, “only one thing matters: the interests of the country.” Who then is responsible? The reflective answer would be: those selfish leftists and right-wingers! The LFI and the RN are responsible for the issuance of the attempted censures and are, objectively, throwing sticks and stones in the path of constructive governance. Although this is a good start, it does not go far enough.

Consider that not only LFI members and RN members voted against Lecornu in the unsuccessful votes on Thursday. A total of 271 lawmakers voted in favor of the first measure, only 18 votes away from the 289 threshold to bring down the government.  Among these were seven Socialists, all 35 Ecologists, and one Republican. Labelling almost half of the parliament as “radical,” as per se “uncooperative” and “selfish” is arrogant. This phenomenon rather demands an investigation of the root causes of their mistrust.

What these 271 lawmakers detest is not Lecornu, nor his ministers or their proposed solutions to the public finance crisis (which included numerous concessions to opposition parties); parliamentarians dislike them as pawns with little room for maneuvered under the orders of chess master and President Emmanuel Macron.

Monsieur Macron has long lost his sway in domestic affairs. An extremely unpopular pension reform in 2023, combined with a shock dissolution of parliament in 2024 after disastrous European elections for the presidential bloc,  has left Macron with a National Assembly divided into three camps. Two of these, the leftist block “Nouvelle Front Populaire,” composed of the LFI, but also Socialists, Ecologists, and Communists, as well as the right-wing RN, promised voters to fight against any unpopular presidential initiatives. The “Macron” label is no longer favored by the French, and consequently, any government “made by Macron” will not be favored by two-thirds of parliament either.

Thus, Mr Lecornu is forced to concede to the opposition. With no solid, majoritarian foundation for government, no “socle commun,” he inevitably counts on his foes to push through his legislative projects in the interests of the country. Unfortunately, two-thirds of National Assembly deputies remember their voters’ vocation to oppose Macron's centralist policies, and not to become Macronist marionettes. Mr. Lecornu is not only at malaise without sufficient  “own” parliamentary backup but, by engaging the opposition in constructive governance,  creates a quagmire for his opponents too. The Parti Socialiste (PS) and Les Republicains (LR) are examples par excellence of the brand-marks left by collaborating with the centralist, Macronist camp in the pursuit of a perceived national interest.

The Socialists, part of the leftist Nouvelle Front Populaire block, have mostly voted in favor of Lecornu II in last week's confidence votes - in exchange for concessions promised by the government - and are now viewed by as “traitor” and “kingmaker” by their friends from the left.

Les Republicains are not faring much better. Bruno Retailleau, Ex-Minister of the Interior and party leader, has refused any participation in the government Lecornu II; David Lisnard, influential LR-politician and mayor of Cannes, has called for immediate censure. Laurent Wauquiez, president of the LR-parliamentary group,  however, had 49 out of 50 LR deputies behind him as the party voted against censuring the government on Thursday.

Lecornu's pursuit of interests, declared “national,” means holding opposition parties like PS or LR at gunpoint to collaborate with Macronist policies. By evoking the common interest of “saving France,” any centralist government conditions not only its own, but also the popularity of its collaborators, on succeeding with their legislative agenda and solving the budgetary crisis. In the unlikely case of curing French public finances until the 2027 presidential elections, this blackmailing may fall under the category “the end justifies the means.” In a more likely scenario of parliamentary errands and discord, Lecornu will not have saved La Republique, but only the ego of moribund Mr. Macron. Parties like the PS or LR, serving as significant counterweights against extremist sediments, will lose a good part of their credibility in this selfish endevor while staining their ideological consciences and profiles.  

Then, in 2027, a new French president will not emerge from the ideologically stained, nor from the “traitors,” nor the disenchanted Macronist centre. And Lecornu's resurrection may have paved the way to the centre of power for those he tried to keep furthest from it.