Embattled French PM survives no-confidence votes
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has survived two confidence votes that could have brought down his fragile new government and plunged France deeper into political chaos.
Thursday’s National Assembly vote cleared the way for the embattled Lecornu to pursue what could be an even bigger challenge: getting the 2026 budget for the European Union’s second-largest economy through parliament’s powerful but sharply divided lower house before the end of the year.
Lecornu’s survival also eliminates the need for President Emmanuel Macron to dissolve the National Assembly again and call early legislative elections; It was a dangerous option that the French leader had signaled he would take if Lecornu fell.
The French president’s close ally has faced two no-confidence motions from Macron’s fiercest opponents, the far-left France Indomitable Party and Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally, and her allies in parliament.
The 577-seat parliament voted first for France’s Unpropagated motion, which fell short by 18 votes, with the support of 271 MPs. A majority of 289 votes was needed to succeed. Le Pen’s second motion received only 144 votes, well short of the majority.
But Lecornu is not out of the woods yet.
To get the votes he needed, Lecornu postponed the possibility of rolling back one of the most important but unpopular reforms of Macron’s second term; This reform will gradually raise France’s retirement age from 62 to 64.
Lecornu’s proposal to suspend the 2023 pension reform helped opposition Socialist Party MPs reluctantly decide not to support efforts to oust him, at least for now.
The support of the Socialists, who have 69 members of parliament, for Lecornu’s dismissal could have caused the votes to turn against Lecornu. But only seven Socialists broke ranks when voting for France’s Indomitable motion.
Conservative Republicans, with 50 MPs, did not support Lecornu’s dismissal, with one exception.
But Lecornu’s still fragile position could collapse in the coming weeks or months if Socialist or Republican lawmakers change their tune and support future no-confidence votes if they fail to get their way in what are sure to be contentious budget negotiations.
Lecornu vowed not to use a special constitutional power to pass the budget through parliament without approval from lawmakers, the tool Macron’s government is using to implement the 2023 pension reform despite fierce protests.
It will be extremely difficult to build parliamentary consensus on tax increases, spending cuts and other budget measures to begin to rein in France’s ballooning government deficit and debt.
