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France’s new prime minister resigned on Monday after less than one month in the role.
Sebastien Lecornu, 39, met with president Emmanuel Macron, who accepted his resignation, the French presidency said in a statement.
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Speaking on the steps of the Hôtel de Matignon on Monday, he said: “You cannot be prime minister when the conditions are not met.”
Lecornu’s resignation came just a day after naming his ministers, and after only two weeks in office. His resignation makes it the shortest-lived government of the Fifth Republic.
Lecornu, a former defence minister, was due to deliver his general policy statement to the National Assembly on Tuesday.
He was appointed prime minister on September 9, a day after a vote of confidence toppled François Bayrou as head of the government.
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Lecornu (pictured on Monday) handed in his resignation in the early hours of Monday morning, accepted by close ally Macron (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Lecornu, the seventh prime minister of Macron’s presidency, announced only on Sunday that he had appointed his ministers, and was set to hold their first meeting on Monday afternoon.
Political opponents on the left and right had condemned Lecornu’s appointments. But his resignation on Monday was unexpected and threatens to add to France’s burgeoning political crisis.
“The conditions were no longer met for me to be able to exercise my functions and allow the government to go before the National Assembly tomorrow,” the outgoing prime minister said on Monday.
He continued that “these political parties sometimes pretended not to see the change, the profound rupture, not to use article 49.3. There was no longer any pretext for parliamentarians to refuse to do their job.”
Article 49.3 gives the government the power to pass bills without a vote from parliament.
Days prior, Lecornu had made a significant concession by promising opposition parties that he would not look to force through legislation without a vote.
He branded this a “break from the past” in an effort to shore up support for a divisive 2026 spending plan, expected to focus on cutting public spending.
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Speaking outside the Hôtel de Matignon on Monday, Lecornu said: “You cannot be prime minister when the conditions are not met.” (AP)
Macron had named Lecornu – a close ally – as prime minister last month in an effort to defuse political gridlock without diverging too far from his centrist base.
Lecornu was immediately tasked with garnering approval to pass austerity measures and reign in spiralling public spending.
For weeks, he had been consulting with political allies and opponents in an effort to win support for the budget. But French parliament remains divided on the issue.
The government of former prime minister Michel Barnier collapsed last year after he tried to invoke Article 49.3 to force through a budget. Lecornu had hoped diplomacy – and the promise not to try it again – would sustain his own government.
Moments after Lecornu’s resignation was announced, National Rally president Jordan Bardella called on Macron to dissolve the National Assembly.
“There can be no restored stability without a return to the polls and without the dissolution of the National Assembly,” the leader of the right-wing populist party wrote on X.
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Macron (right) named his ally, Lecornu (left), as prime minister last month despite growing pressure from the hard Left and hard Right to shift policy (AFP/Getty)
Marine Le Pen likewise called to dissolve the National Assembly, describing the resignation was a “wise move”.
Mathilde Panot, president of the La France Insoumise (LFI) group, wrote on X: “Lecornu resigns. 3 Prime Ministers defeated in less than a year. The countdown has begun. Macron must go.”
The LFI called on the National Assembly to review Emmanuel Macron’s impeachment motion, de facto leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said on Monday.
It was unclear how Macron would proceed. He had previously ruled out resigning before his presidency ends in 2027.
Lecornu had spent weeks trying to form a functioning government against a backdrop of stretched public finances and political instability as the hard left and hard right continue to gain ground.
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France has been rocked by a series of anti-government and anti-austerity protests in recent weeks (Paris on October 2 pictured) (REUTERS)
His choice of ministers had also attracted criticism from across the political spectrum, particularly his decision to bring back former finance minister Bruno Le Maire to serve at the defense ministry.
Other key positions remained largely unchanged from the previous cabinet, with conservative Bruno Retailleau staying on as interior minister, in charge of policing and internal security, Jean-Noel Barrot remaining as foreign minister, and Gerald Darmanin keeping the justice ministry.
Seeking consensus at the deeply fractured National Assembly, Lecornu had announced that he would not employ a special constitutional power his predecessors used to force a budget through parliament without a vote and would instead seek a compromise with lawmakers from the left and the right.
French politics have been embroiled in instability since July 2024, when a snap election produced a hung parliament.
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Strikes and protests against the government and cost-cutting measures have added to political turmoil in France (October 2 pictured) (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
Prime ministers have since struggled to gain the support to pass bills. Bayrou’s government was ousted last month after parliament rejected his austerity bill to cut back on spiralling public spending.
Previous governments had forced through annual budgets without consulting parliament. Lecornu had promised last week that lawmakers would be able to vote on the bill.
The Paris Stock Exchange fell by nearly two per cent on Monday around 08:00 GMT, following the announcement of Lecornu’s resignation.
