French President Emmanuel Macron named loyalist Sebastien Lecornu, a one-time conservative protégé who rallied behind his 2017 presidential run, as prime minister on Tuesday, defying expectations he might tack towards the left.
The choice of Lecornu, 39, indicates Macron’s determination to press on with a minority government that stands firmly behind his pro-business economic reform agenda, under which taxes on business and the wealthy have been cut and the retirement age raised.
Macron was forced to appoint a fifth prime minister in less than two years after parliament ousted Francois Bayrou nine months into the role over his plans for taming the country’s ballooning debt.
In handing the job to Lecornu, Macron risks alienating the centre-left Socialist Party and leaves the president and his government depending on Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally for support in parliament.
Lecornu’s immediate priority will be to forge consensus on a budget for 2026, a task that proved the undoing of Bayrou who had pushed for aggressive spending cuts to rein in a deficit standing at nearly double the EU ceiling of 3 per cent of GDP.
The political upheaval this week lays bare deepening turmoil in France that is weakening the euro zone’s second-biggest economy as it sinks deeper into a debt quagmire.
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