France’s Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu resigned just 14 hours after taking office because his newly formed government immediately faced unified opposition from both political allies and rivals, rendering it impossible to govern.
The unprecedented collapse stemmed from widespread anger over Lecornu’s cabinet appointments, which critics from across the spectrum condemned as either too right-wing or not conservative enough.
The swift resignation delivered Monday morning to President Emmanuel Macron reflected France’s deepening parliamentary crisis, where no party holds a majority in the fractured National Assembly.
Lecornu’s government had been doomed from its Sunday evening inception by an impossible balancing act, attempting to satisfy opposing factions in a parliament that has grown increasingly ungovernable since Macron’s centrist party lost its majority in 2022.
The immediate trigger for Lecornu’s departure was the threatened no-confidence vote that would have toppled his government within days of its formation.
The far-right National Rally seized on the chaos to demand snap elections, with leader Jordan Bardella declaring “no return to stability without a return to the polls” while financial markets responded with sharp declines in French stocks and the euro.
The resignation marks Macron’s fifth prime ministerial change in two years, underscoring the prolonged governance crisis that began with his re-election without parliamentary control and worsened after last year’s snap elections produced an even more fragmented legislature.
