Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu of France resigned on Monday less than 24 hours after forming his cabinet, catching the nation by surprise and making his government one of the shortest-lived in modern French history.
President Emmanuel Macron’s office said in a one-sentence statement that Mr. Macron had accepted the resignation of Mr. Lecornu.
Mr. Lecornu was expected to give a televised address later on Monday morning. It was not immediately clear what had pushed him to resign, but the move came amid turmoil over the composition of his cabinet, an uneasy coalition of centrists and conservatives.
The resignation immediately ratcheted up pressure from opposition parties, which are pushing Mr. Macron to call snap parliamentary elections.
Mr. Lecornu, a close ally of Mr. Macron, was appointed less than a month ago. He is the third prime minister to leave office under a year, a near-unprecedented level of turmoil in France’s modern political history.
The resignation of Mr. Lecornu came amid growing concern that he would not be able to get a budget passed by the end of 2025 to tackle France’s surging debt and deficit. The country’s lower house of Parliament is deadlocked; after snap elections that Mr. Macron called in 2024, no party has a working majority.
Jordan Bardella, the president of the nationalist, anti-immigrant National Rally party — who was told about the resignation by reporters on live television — blamed Mr. Macron for the turbulence in French politics, saying he had “fallen back on his last supporters.”
Opposition parties have accused Mr. Macron of refusing to appoint a prime minister and a cabinet that might undo his agenda, even though Mr. Macron’s centrist alliance lost badly in the snap elections.
“There can be no return to stability without a return to the ballot box,” Mr. Bardella said.
Ségolène Le Stradic and Liz Alderman contributed reporting.
Aurelien Breeden is a reporter for The Times in Paris, covering news from France.
The post French Prime Minister Resigns in Surprise Move appeared first on New York Times.
