French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has resigned only 27 days after assuming office and a mere 14 hours after presenting his new cabinet.
The move, though surprising, followed fierce criticism from opposition parties and even government allies, who argued that the ministers he selected were unfit to take charge amid France’s ongoing political turmoil.
Before stepping down, Lecornu was sharply criticized for promising a “break with old politics” but retaining nearly all the same faces from the previous government. He also placed Macron loyalists in key posts, such as Roland Lescure at the Finance Ministry, fueling accusations of continuity rather than renewal.
Lecornu, Macron’s fifth prime minister in two years, led a government that lasted just 14 hours — the shortest in modern French history.
The backlash was immediate and intense. With the opposition holding the balance of power needed to pass the budget, demands grew louder for snap elections and even for President Emmanuel Macron’s departure. The political context is particularly volatile: the left currently holds a parliamentary majority, while the far right leads in the polls.
Parties across the spectrum — from the left to the far right — had already planned meetings to decide whether to force Lecornu out. Faced with the likelihood of his government collapsing before it even began to function, Lecornu appears to have chosen to resign rather than be voted out.
At just 14 hours in office, his cabinet has entered the record books as the shortest-lived government in modern French history.
