Farewell Sébastien Lecornu, we hardly knew you.
On Monday, the French prime minister and his government resigned, a mere 12 hours after the Cabinet was appointed. He had been PM for 27 days, the same time that it takes for the moon to orbit the Earth.
If Liz Truss was likened to a lettuce because her 44-day stint as British PM was outlasted by a vegetable bought by a tabloid newspaper, that must make Lecornu the spinach of politicians, as he wilted so quickly.
Of course, France is no stranger to short political careers. The previous shortest-lived prime minister of the Fifth Republic was Michel Barnier, who lasted a whopping 90 days in 2024. However, the all-time champ for shortest tenure as France’s head of government remains the Duke de Mortemart, who served for a matter of hours before Charles X’s absolutist regime was overthrown in the Revolution of 1830.
Other brief tenures include Alexandre Ribot, who was in office for four days before resigning just ahead of the outbreak of World War I, and Édouard Daladier, who governed for a little over a week before the deadly far-right riots of 1934 forced his ouster. In 1948, EU founding father Robert Schuman led a government that fell in only nine days as a result of postwar political turmoil.
However, the undisputed king (we aren’t dealing with actual kings and queens, or else you’d be reading this all week) of the short political reign was Pedro Lascuráin, who was president of Mexico for less than an hour on Feb. 19, 1913. He was chosen to act as a bridge between Francisco Madero, who was overthrown in a coup, and Victoriano Huerta, who did the overthrowing.
That meant Lascuráin was president for around 45 minutes before handing over the presidency, just enough time to write his full name — Pedro José Domingo de la Calzada Manuel María Lascuráin Paredes — on a few official documents.
Latin Americans are good at this kind of thing — in 2001, Argentina had five presidents in the space of just 10 days — and so are Australians (Frank Forde was prime minister for a whopping eight days in 1945).
In the U.S., the title of shortest-serving president goes to William Henry Harrison, who died exactly one month after taking office. A special shoutout goes to Anthony Scaramucci, who lasted 10 days as White House communications director in Donald Trump’s first administration.
In Europe, politicians tend to spend a reasonable amount of time in power (unless you count Joseph Goebbels, who was chancellor of Germany for just a day, and Karl Dönitz, who replaced Adolf Hitler as head of Nazi Germany and lasted 23 days. While we’re looking at World War II, Arthur Seyss-Inquart was chancellor of Austria for two days).
There are other short political tenures in Europe, especially in Italy. In 1954, for example, the government led by Amintore Fanfani lasted a grand total of 12 days. Fanfani returned for his sixth and final stint as prime minister in 1987, this time lasting 11 days. In 1972, Giulio Andreotti’s first Italian government lasted just nine days.
Then there’s Sweden’s Magdalena Andersson, who was named prime minister in 2021 and resigned just seven hours later after failing to get parliamentary backing for her budget. Andersson got a second chance a few days later and managed to last almost a year.
Aitor Hernández-Morales contributed to this report.
The post Sébastien Lecornu and the world’s other shortest political careers appeared first on Politico.
