President Emmanuel Macron appointed Sébastien Lecornu as France's prime minister on Tuesday, September 9, the day after François Bayrou was forced to resign after losing a confidence vote in the Assemblée Nationale. Lecornu, 39, had been serving as defense minister since Macron's re-election in 2022. Said to be close to Macron, he has been part of every government since 2017.
Bayrou suffered a crushing loss in the confidence vote he had himself called, plunging France into fresh uncertainty and leaving Macron with the task of finding the seventh premier of his mandate.
Bayrou had blindsided even his allies by calling a confidence vote to end a lengthy standoff over his austerity budget, which foresaw almost €44 billion ($52 billion) of cost savings to reduce France's debt pile. In the end, 364 MPs in the Assemblée Nationale voted that they had no confidence in the government, while just 194 gave it their confidence.
Bayrou was the sixth prime minister under Macron since his 2017 election, and the fifth since 2022. His predecessor, Michel Barnier, was brought down by a no-confidence vote in December. The crisis dates back to summer 2024 legislative elections that resulted in a hung parliament.
France's borrowing costs, a measure of investor confidence, on Tuesday surged slightly higher than those for Italy, long one of Europe's debt laggards.
Alongside political upheaval, France is also facing social tensions. A movement called "Block Everything" is holding a day of action on Wednesday and trade unions have urged workers to strike on September 18.