Macron Picks Sébastien Lecornu as France’s Next PM

French President Emmanuel Macron has tapped Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu as the country’s next prime minister.

Macron nominated the 39-year-old as France’s next head of government on Tuesday hours after accepting the resignation of François Bayrou, whose government was resoundingly defeated in a confidence vote Monday over plans to slash next year’s budget by €43.8 billion.

Macron’s office said in a statement that the president had tasked Lecornu with “consulting the political forces represented in parliament” to adopt a budget and move forward with the business of running the country.

“The president of the Republic is convinced that, on this basis, an agreement between the political forces is possible while respecting each party’s convictions,” the statement read.

Lecornu was the purported frontrunner to succeed Bayrou, and Macron’s office was even game-planning his appointment option Monday evening, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the matter.

The armed forces minister reportedly hit the phones over the weekend to drum up support for his potential premiership and has already started reaching out to potential ministerial candidates, according to two people with direct knowledge of the calls who were granted anonymity to discuss backroom negotiations.

Part of Lecornu’s appeal is his supposed ability to reach across the political aisle at a time of profound political paralysis. An individual close to Lecornu told POLITICO the minister privately boasts of enjoying a privileged relationship with Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally, while at the same time insisting he could lead a coalition government of both the right and the left.

Le Pen, however, was quick to slam the appointment and reiterated her calls for new parliamentary elections.

“The president has fired the last shot of macronism, holed up in his bunker with his small group of loyalists,” she wrote in a post on X.

At the opposite end of the political spectrum, far-left France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon called the appointment a “sad comedy of contempt for parliament” and called on Macron to resign.

The key to Lecornu’s political future may lie with the Socialists, whom Macron had been pushing Bayrou to find a way to work with before his government collapsed.

But common ground between the center-left party and the conservative Les Républicains, a minority coalition partner in Bayrou’s government, appears elusive. The two parties fundamentally disagree on how to go about crafting a budget for next year that allays the concerns of financial markets about public spending and France’s €3.3 trillion worth of debt without hindering economic growth or hitting the middle class too hard.

After Lecornu’s appointment was announced, the Socialists said in a statement that Macron “is stubbornly pursuing a path that no Socialist will support.”

“He is risking legitimate social unrest and institutional paralysis in the country,” the statement read.

While passing a budget may prove to be the trickiest file on his desk, he’ll face a more pressing challenge Wednesday.

Authorities are bracing for demonstrations across the country as part of an online movement called “Block Everything” that gained steam after Bayrou unveiled his aggressive deficit reduction plans, which included axing two paid public holidays.

While the movement’s origins are nebulous, an analysis by the Jean Jaurès Foundation found it was driven in large part by the radical left.