French President Emmanuel Macron presented the 34 ministers Sunday night after a marathon meeting. On Tuesday, the new cabinet will meet for the first time. The aim is to have a new budget on the table before the end of the year.
That means the brand-new government must finish the budget proposal by Tuesday at the latest. According to the French constitution, parliament has 70 days to analyze the budget.
It remains to be seen whether Lecornu’s new cabinet will last. The far-left party La France insoumise (LFI) announced Monday it will file a no-confidence motion, as will the far-right Rassemblement National (RN). This means that the new government faces an exciting vote before the end of the week.
The cabinet includes a number of familiar faces. Jean-Noël Barrot, for example, returns as foreign minister. But there are also surprising new appointments. Parisian police prefect Laurent Nuñez has been appointed Interior Minister. Les Républicains (LR) party spokesman Vincent Jeanbrun becomes Minister of Urban Affairs, despite his party’s insistence that he should not.
After his first appointment about a month ago, Lecornu planned to include a lot of Macron’s confidants in the government. That plan drew a lot of criticism from parliament. Consequently, a vote of no confidence hung over Lecornu, upon which he himself decided to resign.
On Friday, Macron reappointed him as prime minister. “Out of a sense of duty,” the 39-year-old Lecornu took on the task of still forming a new government and drafting a budget.
This political crisis has been playing out for some time in France, which is facing a huge mountain of debt. Lecornu is already the fifth prime minister in two years. His predecessor, François Bayrou, did not survive a vote of confidence in parliament after he could not find a majority for his austerity plans.
Since last year’s early parliamentary elections, Macron has had great difficulty forming majorities. The parliament is heavily divided, with his party Renaissance, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical-left bloc and the radical-right bloc around Rassemblement National, Marine Le Pen’s party.
