France’s outgoing PM Lecornu hints at budget deal amid political turmoil

Caretaker French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has played down the prospect of a dissolution of parliament following talks with political parties to reach an austerity budget deal and resolve the nation’s worst political turmoil in years.

The consultations showed a desire to push through the proposed budget cuts by the end of the year, Lecornu said on Wednesday, following an impasse which has prompted calls for embattled President Emmanuel Macron to step down.

“This willingness creates a momentum and a convergence, obviously, which make the possibilities of a dissolution more remote,” Lecornu said in a speech at Paris’s Matignon Palace.

Lecornu, who himself resigned on Monday after less than a month in power, was tasked by Macron to stay on until Wednesday to explore whether there was room to resolve the crisis by leading one last round of discussions with all political forces. He is expected to submit his conclusion in the evening.

The outgoing prime minister said there was an agreement to keep the deficit for next year below 5 percent of France’s gross domestic product to maintain France’s credibility.

There also seem to be overtures to make concessions on the highly contested pensions reform that raises the retirement age to 64 – a move that triggered major protests in 2023 by opposition parties and unions. Former Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, who introduced the unpopular law, told Le Parisien on Tuesday that she was open to suspending it to find a way out of the impasse.

Still, it is not clear whether that would be enough to rally support at the National Assembly. Valerie Pecresse from the traditional right-wing Republicans party warned that suspending the reform would “allow the pension system’s deficits to explode” and be a “moral failing” for the next generation.

Wednesday’s talks were the latest development in a political crisis that started when Macron called snap elections last year. His goal was to get a stronger majority in parliament, but he instead finished with an even more fractious assembly.

This plunged France into deeper political chaos: with no governing majority, the parliament has been unable to approve the budget to narrow France’s growing debt. To resolve the deadlock, Macron appointed three prime ministers who either failed to secure a majority or resigned, including Lecornu.

Meanwhile, opposition parties have been seizing the momentum. A leading figure of the far-right National Rally (NR) party, Marine Le Pen, has once again called for Macron to call for early legislative elections or resign before his term ends in 2027 and pledged to block any actions of any new cabinet.

“I vote against everything,” Marine Le Pen said. “The problem with our political leaders today is that they get on the horse not to go somewhere, but for a rodeo,” the 57-year-old said. Their idea is “how long can I hold on while the horse tries to throw me off?”

Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, NR’s president, refused to join negotiations with Lecornu, French media reported on Tuesday, saying that such talks did not serve the interest of French citizens but rather those of Macron.

Following last year’s elections, NR won more seats than any other, but not enough to form a majority. In September, a poll by TF1-LCI showed that more than 60 percent of French voters approved new elections. And should those take place, the leaders of the NR would lead the race’s first round, according to a poll by Ifop Fiducial.

Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, and Francois-Xavier Bellamy, head of the right-wing Republicans party, also called for the president to resign.

The political chaos is not only emboldening Macron’s rivals, it is also turning his allies away.

“I no longer understand the decision of the president. There was the dissolution and since then, there’s been decisions that suggest a relentless desire to stay in control,” Gabriel Attal, leader of the president’s centrist party, said on Monday. And Edouard Philippe, another former prime minister appointed by Macron, urged the president to step down.

“People are abandoning him on all sides, it’s clear that he is responsible for the political crisis which gets worse each day,” said political analyst Elisa Auange. “He seems to be making all the wrong decisions.”