FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron has appointed Sébastien Lecornu as his fifth Prime Minister in the space of two years.
It comes after Francois Bayrou was sensationally ousted in a confidence motion yesterday.
EPAMacron has appointed a key ally as his new PM[/caption]
AFPThe beleaguered President is now on his seventh Prime Minister[/caption]
AFPFrance’s Minister of Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu leaves the National Assembly[/caption]
The new Prime Minister will now be tasked with forming a government amid France’s burgeoning debt crisis.
A close ally of President Macron, Lecornu will now face the unenviable task of forming a government amid a deeply divided parliament.
His predecessor Francois Bayrou was voted out by the National Assembly yesterday in a confidence motion after he proposed deeply unpopular austerity measures.
He had said France’s youth risk could be burdened with debt “for the sake of the comfort of boomers” unless the country addressed its spiralling debt.
“The whole model of our nation needs to be reinvented,” Bayrou said before lawmakers yesterday.
“You have the power to overthrow the government but you don’t have to power to erase the truth,” he said.
France’s national debt as a proportion of GDP is currently a staggering 114%.
Sébastien Lecornu has served as Minister for the Armed Forces since 2022.
It comes as extremist parties continue to put pressure on France’s political establishment.
What is behind the chaos in France?
FRANCE has been gripped by political deadlock for more than a year now, and it all goes back to last summer.
Emmanuel Macron unexpectedly called a snap legislative election – one that spectacularly backfired.
An avowed centrist, Macron’s moderate bloc lost dozens of seats amid a surge in support for the far-right National Rally, which dominated the first round of voting.
While a left wing coalition would emerge in first place after round two, no party was anywhere close to a majority.
Without a stable governing coalition needed to tackle the country’s burgeoning debt crisis, successive Prime Ministers have tried and failed to take tough decisions.
But this messy composition of the French Parliament makes it a tricky equation to solve – and one that’s already brought multiple Prime Ministers down.
Macron now faces several unenviable options, from betting the house on another new Prime Minister to fresh snap elections – or even his own premature exit.
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