Sébastien Lecornu Reappointed by Emmanuel Macron at Matignon

PRIME MINISTER: Four days after his resignation, the resigning Prime Minister was reappointed to his post by the President of the Republic

However, he had announced that his mission was over, suggesting that he would not agree to return. However, this Friday, shortly after 10 pm, while Emmanuel Macron had given himself 48 hours to rename a Prime Minister, that’s the name of Sébastien Lecornu which was announced by the Elysée in a press release.

His reputation as a skillful negotiator had been severely tested over the past four weeks. The discreet Sébastien Lecornu, “soldier monk” of the President, is thus returned to Matignon after having resigned and carried out last chance consultations. The resigning Prime Minister indicated on X that he accepted “out of duty” his reappointment to Matignon in the midst of a political crisis and assured that “all the files” raised during the consultations would be “open to parliamentary debate”.

The future government “must embody the renewal and diversity of skills”, added the Prime Minister. “Those who enter government will have to commit to disconnecting from presidential ambitions for 2027”, he repeated

The most short-lived Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic

By submitting his resignation letter last Monday, he became the most short-lived head of government in the Fifth Republic. But on the same day, President Emmanuel Macron asked him to lead “final” negotiations which did not find a way out of the crisis.

At the head of the Ministry of the Armed Forces since 2022, he has made reserve and prudence his trademark. Thrifty with his public speech, he calls himself a bit of a “soldier monk”. And the French have only really discovered him in recent days, notably during his appearance on Wednesday on the 8 p.m. news.

This 39-year-old man in the inner circle, involved very early in right-wing politics, did not seem eager to return – “I am not chasing the job”, “my mission is finished” –, and he now risks censorship again. His choice also aroused opposition within the central bloc itself. Of all the governments since 2017, it is largely behind the scenes that this faithful Emmanuel Macron extended his influence in the macronie and tried in Matignon to negotiate with the socialists. In vain.

An unprecedented political crisis

Appointed for the first time on the 9th September, he only partially lifted the veil in three somewhat military declarations on the steps of Matignon. In one month, however, he gave “the feeling of sincerity and even of being in a form of sacrificial mission”, concedes a socialist official. It then took him three weeks to form a government. But just fourteen hours after his team’s announcement, Sébastien Lecornu resigned on Monday 6th October, plunging France into an unprecedented political crisis. The day before The Republicans(LR) had threatened to leave the government coalition. “It’s theatre”, says an LR executive. His resignation “allowed him to reconsider being Prime Minister again, while censorship a few days later excluded him from any future government”.

In a macronie in full disintegration, he is one of the last loyalists of the president. Already last year, he narrowly missed Matignon, where François Bayrou had imposed itself. Private like its predecessors of majority at the National Assembly, Sébastien Lecornu admitted to being the “weakest” Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic. All the power lies in Parliament, he said, where this Gaullist was kind enough to renounce 49.3, the government’s prerogative, to give control back to the deputies.