French prime minister avoids removal

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu survived two votes of no confidence Thursday that could have toppled his fragile new government and plunged France deeper into political chaos.

- BY JOHN LEICESTER AND JEFFREY SCHAEFFER

FRENCH Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu listens to debates.

(MAGALI COHEN Hans Lucas/AFP)

The National Assembly votes clear the way for the embattled Lecornu to pursue what could be an even greater challenge: getting a 2026 budget for the European Union’s second-largest economy through Parliament’s powerful but bitterly divided lower house before the end of the year.

Lecornu’s survival also spares any immediate need for President Emmanuel Macron to dissolve the National Assembly and call snap legislative elections, a hazardous option that the French leader took in 2024 and which he had signaled that he might take again if Lecornu fell.

One tight vote

Lecornu, a close ally of the French president, faced two no-confidence motions filed by Macron’s fiercest opponents — the hard-left France Unbowed party and Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally and her allies in Parliament.

The 577-seat chamber voted on the France Unbowed motion first — and it fell short by 18 votes, with 271 lawmakers supporting it. It needed a majority of 289 votes to succeed.

Le Pen’s second motion got just 144 votes, well short of a majority, backed only by her party, its allied Union of the Right for the Republic and a handful of other lawmakers.