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French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu unveiled a new cabinet on Sunday night in an effort to try to secure parliamentary approval for a 2026 budget and defuse a deepening political crisis.
Lecornu, who resigned on Monday last week only to be reappointed by President Emmanuel Macron on Friday, picked Roland Lescure to remain as finance minister.
But he also turned to some new faces in a bid to appease opposition parties in France’s hung parliament. Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez was appointed interior minister.
The new government will now meet to finalise a draft budget for 2026 over the next two days, before presenting it to parliament.
“A government has been named with a mission to give France a budget by the end of the year,” Lecornu said on X. “Only one thing counts: the interest of our country.”
Since legislative elections last year resulted in a hung parliament, Macron has appointed and lost three prime ministers as they struggled to finalise a 2026 budget that would cut France’s deficit.
The deficit is set to hit 5.4 per cent of GDP this year, and investor concerns about the country’s ability to reduce it have served to roil financial markets and push up France’s borrowing costs.
This is a developing story
