French President Emmanuel Macron will name a new prime minister within 48 hours, the Elysee Palace has said, fending off speculation that fresh elections could be imminent.
Earlier on Wednesday, outgoing Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said the possibility of dissolving parliament was beginning to fade following talks with political parties over the last two days.
“There is a majority in parliament and that is the majority that is keen to avoid fresh elections,” he said.
On Monday, Lecornu – a close ally of Macron – became the third French PM to leave his job in less than a year, driven out by a hung parliament deeply divided along ideological lines.
He was then asked by Macron to stay on for two days to form a consensus among parties on how to get out of the current political crisis.
In a much-awaited TV interview on Wednesday evening, Lecornu gave no indication about who the next prime minister would be, and although he said his mission was “finished”, he also did not appear to rule himself out entirely.
He said that as well as not wanting fresh elections, most MPs also recognised the pressing need to pass a budget by the end of the year.
However, he recognised the path towards forming a government was still complicated due to the divisions within parliament and to politicians eyeing the next presidential election.
Whoever ends up in government “will need to be completely disconnected from any presidential ambition for 2027,” said Lecornu, a former armed forces minister.
France’s political stalemate began following snap elections in July 2024. Since then no one party has had a majority, making it difficult to pass any laws or reforms including the yearly budget.
The big challenge facing Lecornu and his two predecessors has been how to tackle France’s crippling national debt, which this year stood at €3.4tn (£2.9tn), or almost 114% of economic output (GDP), the third highest in the eurozone after Greece and Italy.
Previous prime ministers Michel Barnier and Francois Bayrou were ousted in confidence votes after they presented austerity budgets.
Lecornu said his own draft budget would be presented next week, although it would be “open for debate”.
“But the debate needs to begin… parties cannot say they’ll vote it down without examining it,” he added.
Similarly, Lecornu said, one big issue that has been plaguing French politics since 2023 will need to be revisited – Macron’s highly contested pension reforms. “We have to find a way for the debate to take place,” Lecornu said.
