France’s new PM Lecornu quits after just 27 days in office

Newly appointed govt also resigns, marking major deepening of country’s political crisis

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France’s new Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu and his government resigned on Oct 6, hours after he announced his Cabinet lineup, in a deepening of the country’s political crisis that drove stocks and the euro sharply lower.

The swift resignation was unexpected and unprecedented, and marked another major deepening of France’s political crisis. It came after allies and foes alike threatened to topple the new government.

The far-right National Rally immediately urged President Emmanuel Macron to call a snap parliamentary election. The hard-left France Unbowed said Mr Macron himself must go.

Mr Lecornu, who was Mr Macron’s fifth prime minister in two years, was in the job for only 27 days.

His government lasted 14 hours, making it the shortest-lived in modern French history at a time when Parliament is deeply divided and the euro zone’s second-largest economy is struggling to put its finances in order.

“One cannot be prime minister when the conditions are not met,” Mr Lecornu said in a short speech after his resignation.

To explain why he could not go forward and strike compromises with rival parties, he blamed the “egos” of opposition politicians who rigidly stuck to their manifes-

tos, while those inside his minority coalition were focusing on their own presidential ambitions.