France, PM Lecornu depends on socialists to survive censure—but budget remains to be approved

Brussels – After a full year of profound instability, perhaps there is a fleeting light at the end of the tunnel for France. Sébastien Lecornu, the current Prime Minister who succeeded himself earlier this week, may be able to survive the Caudine Forks of the Assemblée Nationale in Paris, where two motions of no-confidence from the opposition will be voted on tomorrow. The key will be the support of the Socialists, who have shown signs of openness but want further concessions from the tenant of Palais Matignon.

The responsibility that rests on the shoulders of the premier ministre—who resigned in record time from his first mandate on 6 October and was then once again asked by the head of state, Emmanuel Macron, to form an executive on 13 October—is no small one: To try to halt the spiral of the worst crisis of the Cinquième République and give the country a budget law for 2026, to avert the provisional exercise and regain the confidence of the financial markets and the EU.

A far from enviable task. Lecornu has to reckon, like his predecessors Michel Barnier and François Bayrou (unseated respectively in December last year and September this year precisely over two “blood and tears” financial budgets), with the most balkanised Assemblée in modern history, where the ultra-right of the Rassemblement National (RN) and the radical left of La France Insoumise (LFI) have been on the barricades since the inauguration of the 17th parliamentary term, in July 2024.

The leaders of both camps, Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon,
have long been calling for Macron’s head and are trying to break the bank for the umpteenth time, after having shot down previous premiers. Now they have also put Lecornu in their sights, against whom they have filed two motions of censure that will be debated by MPs tomorrow (16 October). To scuttle him, 289 votes will be needed out of the total 577 in the hemicycle.

However, unlike Barnier and Bayrou, Lecornu may have an ace up his sleeve enough to keep him in the saddle, if he knows how to play it right. Just yesterday, the chief executive announced the suspension of the highly contested pension reform until at least January 2028, i.e. after the next presidential elections scheduled for spring 2027. This reform, strongly desired by Macron himself, aims to restructure Paris’ public accounts by raising the retirement age from 62 to 64. The result? A cross-party wall of opposition and a massive popular mobilisation, which has brought the country to a standstill for months.

French President Emmanuel Macron (photo: Stephane De Sakutin/AFP)

Lecornu’s move, which aims to defuse the censure of the Parti socialiste (PS), seems to be a direct consequence of the intense pressure exerted by the deepening political crisis on the Elysée tenant. To demonstrate his control of the situation, the president has threatened to disband parliament if the government collapses. But Macron knows very well that if the French were to go back to the polls today, “his” liberal centre would evaporate like snow in the sun and the Parliament would in all likelihood end up in the hands of the Lepenists (polls give the Rn a 33.6 per cent approval rating).

The one granted by Lecornu was the opening indicated by the Social Democrats as the conditio sine qua non to support a Macronist government. The reformist formation led by Olivier Faure—which is increasingly fed up with the inflammatory rhetoric of its ally insoumis—has made it known that, as a sign of responsibility, it will not vote against the premier. But he calls for a change of pace on the part of the Palais Matignon, to finally reflect what the ballot boxes have long since decreed: that Macronism has come to an end.

For example, socialists are calling for the introduction of a 2 per cent tax on fortunes over 100 million euros (held by 0.01 per cent of the population), currently taxed at an average of 0.3 per cent. The so-called “Zucman tax“ (named after the economist Gabriel Zucman, who proposed it) has become the subject of an intense public debate in recent months. The progressive NFP parties support it, while the rest of the hemicycle sees it as smoke and mirrors. Lecornu has declared himself willing to compromise on this front as well, but parliamentary negotiations could still prove complex.

The secretary of the French Socialist Party, Olivier Faure (photo: Ludovic Marin/Afp)

Although, on paper, there are not enough votes in the Chamber to unseat him – the votes of RN and its allies (139 seats) to those of the NFP without the Socialists (126 deputies) add up to 265, 24 less than the critical threshold – there are, however, several dissidents in the area ranging from the PS to the neo-Gaullist Républicains, precisely the one that Lecornu will appeal to tomorrow. At least three defections are expected among the social democrats, while some rebels might also break ranks among Macron’s centrists and the conservatives, who consider the réforme des retraites to be untouchable.

However, even if he manages to avoid censure, the trouble for Lecornu will not end tomorrow. His “caretaker government” will have to give France a budget for next year and cut Paris’s public deficit, currently hovering around 5.8 per cent of GDP, in order to defuse the infringement proceedings initiated by Brussels for violation of EU constraints (which set the deficit ceiling at 3 per cent of GDP). An uphill road for the Premier Ministre with the (so far) shortest career in the Fifth Republic.

Edit: this article was updated to rectify the amount of the French public deficit.