“We will succeed… because nothing is impossible,” said Sébastien Lecornu as he gave his maiden speech as France’s Prime Minister at his handover ceremony in Paris on September 9. He was appointed Premier by President Emmanuel Macron in less than 24 hours after the fall of François Bayrou’s government. Mr. Lecornu, 39, is now the country’s fifth Prime Minister in under two years.

Born on June 11, 1986 in Eaubonne, Val-d’Oise, Sébastien Lecornu is the son of an aeronautics factory technician and a medical secretary. His modest background, rooted in the small town of Vernon in Normandy, shaped his political outlook. “Unfortunately, I was born old,” he once joked, a self-effacing remark that hinted at both his receding hairline and the weight of early responsibilities. Politics, he says, was always present. “I never imagined myself holding government office so early,” Mr. Lecornu said.

Mr. Lecornu recalls the influence of his maternal grandfather, a decorated member of the anti-Nazi Resistance in Calvados during the Second World War, as an inspiration in his political journey.

By his late teens, Mr. Lecornu had already entered politics. At 19, he became a parliamentary attaché; at 22, an adviser to Bruno Le Maire, then a rising figure in the French right. At 28, he was elected Mayor of Vernon. By 2020, he had secured a Senate seat for Normandy. Alongside this steady rise, Mr. Lecornu maintained a dual identity: a reserve colonel in the National Gendarmerie (the military police) and a Frenchman fascinated by military history, a passion that would later define his role as France’s Defence Minister.

Strategic autonomy

Caution and discretion are the two keys to his longevity in government. A member of President Macron’s centrist Renaissance party, Mr. Lecornu has been a loyal ally since the start of the President’s first term, serving in every cabinet since 2017. He began as Secretary of State for Ecology, moved to overseas affairs, and in 2022 was handed the defence portfolio. As Defence Minister, Mr. Lecornu advocated Mr. Macron’s vision of European strategic autonomy. Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Mr. Lecornu has also become the face of France’s military build-up. In 2023, he shepherded the parliamentary vote on a new military planning law that foresaw €413 billion in defence spending from 2024 to 2030. He has cultivated ties across the political spectrum, earning a reputation as “the king of political flirting”. In the words of Gérald Darmanin, France’s long-time Interior Minister and one of Mr. Lecornu’s closest friends, “He has a great capacity for dialogue.”“He talks to everyone — from the hard-left France Unbowed party to the RN, (the far-right National Rally),” François Cormier-Bouligeon, a Renaissance lawmaker, told Le Monde.

However, Mr. Lecornu’s career has not been without controversies. As Overseas Minister, he oversaw the 2021 referendum in New Caledonia, which was boycotted by independence groups, undermining the vote’s legitimacy. He also struggled to prevent his home region of Eure from swinging heavily toward Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in both the 2022 presidential and 2024 legislative elections.

Green Party leader Marine Tondelier once condemned him as “homophobic”, citing the past comments he made, opposing same-sex marriage and adoption rights. Mr. Lecornu later softened his stance, acknowledging that he had “come a long way”, especially on medically assisted reproduction.

Mr. Lecornu studied at the private Catholic lycée Saint-Adjutor in Vernon before beginning a law degree in Paris. He enrolled in a master’s programme in public law, but did not complete it. Today, he lives, accompanied by his dog, Tiga, who is known to roam the corridors of the Armed Forces Ministry.

If Mr. Lecornu has sometimes been accused of playing the courtier to Mr. Macron, his loyalty has been rewarded. He has been part of the “Élysée boys’ club” — the President’s tight inner circle — and often accompanied Mr. Macron abroad. During the “Yellow Vest” crisis of 2018–19, he became a key architect of the “great national debate,” persuading the President to engage directly with Mayors and citizens, a move many credited with easing tensions.

Now, as Prime Minister, Mr. Lecornu faces the dual challenge of bridging the gap, as he puts it, “between real life and the political situation,” while also securing enough support in a divided Parliament, where no party has a majority, to pass a crucial budget, which is to be signed off by December 31.

Published – September 14, 2025 02:44 am IST

Only 34% said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their new head of government. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

France’s new Prime Minister Francois Bayrou, who is still scrambling to name his government before Christmas, faced a fresh challenge Sunday (December 22, 2024): a historically low poll rating.

Even before he has properly started his job, a new poll carried out by Ifop for the French weekly Journal du Dimanche found 66% of respondents were unhappy with his performance.

Also Read: On French President Macron and his politics

Only 34% said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their new head of government.

Going back decades to 1959, Ifop said it had not seen such a low rating for a Prime Minister getting started in the job.

They questioned 2,004 people representative of the French population between December 11 and 18.

Mr. Bayrou is the sixth Prime Minister of President Emmanuel Macron’s mandate, and the fourth of 2024. Each has served for a shorter period than the last one.

Mr. Bayrou’s predecessor Michel Barnier was France’s shortest-serving premier, lasting only three months.

Appointed on December 13, Mr. Bayrou has yet to submit his cabinet choices to Macron.

But he told France 2 television on Friday (December 20, 2024) that he hoped his new team would be finalised over the weekend or “in any case before Christmas”.

France newly appointed Prime minister Michel Barnier (R) delivers a speech next to rance outgoing Prime minister Gabriel Attal (L) during the handover ceremony at the Hotel Matignon in Paris, on September 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

France’s new right-wing Prime Minister Michel Barnier started consulting all sides Friday (September 6, 2024) to cobble together a government capable of mustering a majority in parliament after two months of political deadlock.

The 73-year-old, a former Foreign Minister who recently acted as the European Union’s Brexit negotiator, is the oldest premier in the history of modern France.

Taking over from 35-year-old Gabriel Attal, a centrist half his age who was the country’s first openly gay premier, Mr. Barnier pledged to take on his new task with “humility”.

He said education, security and “immigration control” were his priorities and said he would be unafraid to speak the truth on the country’s “financial debt”, but also promised “change”.

President Emmanuel Macron named Barnier after weeks of impasse as France hosted the Olympics and part of the Paralympics after his centrist alliance lost its relative majority in parliament in a snap election.

Mr. Macron took the risk of dissolving parliament in June and calling for the vote after the far right trounced his alliance in European elections.

The election saw a left-wing alliance emerge as France’s biggest political force, but without enough seats for an overall majority.

Instead the anti-immigration far-right National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen became the single largest party in the lower chamber of the European Union’s second largest economy, with the most votes in any confidence motion, followed by Mr. Macron’s centrist group.

Le Pen, who leads RN lawmakers in parliament, has said her party would not be part of the new cabinet, but would wait for Barnier’s first policy speech in front of parliament to decide whether or not to back him.

Critics say Mr. Macron has made Le Pen the de-facto kingmaker, despite long presenting himself as a bulwark against the far right.

‘Betrayed’

The left in particular has reeled at Barnier’s nomination and will likely seek to topple him in the lower house.

“I am very angry, like millions of French voters who I think feel betrayed,” Lucie Castets, the 37-year-old economist who the left wanted to become premier, told RTL. “The president is placing himself in cohabitation with the National Rally,” she said, vowing to table a motion of no confidence against Mr. Barnier.

Le Monde daily described Mr. Barnier as a “prime minister under the surveillance of the RN”. The left-leaning Liberation daily put a picture of Barnier on its front page with “approved by Marine Le Pen” as a rubber stamp.

Mr. Barnier was to meet Attal, who remains leader of the president’s centrist Together for the Republic (EPR) group in parliament, on Friday before talking to the leaders of his own Republicans (LR) party to discuss the make-up of a new cabinet, his aides said.

Meetings with left-wing politicians, the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party and the RN should follow, the aides said.

“He wants solid, competent and effective ministers,” one of his aides said, and “will have the freedom of choosing” them.

French President Emmanuel Macron (L) poses with European Commission Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier prior to their meeting at the Elysee palace in Paris, on January 31, 2020. Michel Barnier was named as France’s new Prime Minister.
| Photo Credit: AFP

President Emmanuel Macron named EU former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as France’s new Prime Minister on Thursday (September 5, 2024) after more than 50 days of caretaker government.

The appointment of the 73-year-old Mr. Barnier follows weeks of intense efforts by Mr. Macron and his aides to find a candidate who might be able to build loose groupings of backers in parliament and survive possible attempts by Mr. Macron’s opponents to quickly topple the new government that Mr. Barnier will now put together and lead.

A statement from Mr. Macron’s office announcing Mr. Barnier’s appointment said he’d been tasked “with forming a unifying government to serve the country and the French people.”

“This appointment comes after an unprecedented cycle of consultations during which, in accordance with his constitutional duty, the President ensured that the Prime Minister and the future government would meet the conditions to be as stable as possible and give themselves the chances of uniting as broadly as possible,” the statement said.

Mr. Barnier, a career politician proud of his humble roots in France’s Alpine region of Haute-Savoie, is no stranger to complex and difficult tasks: He was the European Union’s chief negotiator in the difficult talks with Britain over its Brexit departure from the bloc.

Mr. Barnier replaces Gabriel Attal, who resigned on July 16 following quick-fire legislative elections that produced a divided and hung parliament, plunging France into political turmoil.

But Mr. Macron kept Mr. Attal and his ministers on in a caretaker capacity, handling day-to-day affairs, so political instability wouldn’t overshadow the July 26-Aug. 11 Paris Olympics, when France was in the global spotlight.

In a political career over more than 50 years, Mr. Barnier has served as French foreign, European affairs, environment and agriculture minister — and twice as a European commissioner.

Influential far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon immediately came out against Mr. Barnier’s appointment and predicted the new Prime Minister would not get a majority backing in the bitterly divided National Assembly.

Mr. Melenchon said the appointment flew in the face of the July 7 legislative election results that left parliament’s lower house split between three main blocs — the left, including Mr. Melenchon’s party; the center where Mr. Macron has based his support, and the far right, converging around anti-immigration leader Marine Le Pen.

“The election has been stolen,” Mr. Melenchon asserted.

Olivier Faure, First Secretary of the Socialist Party
| Photo Credit: AP

The French left will choose a candidate for prime minister from within their victorious electoral coalition within the week, Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure said on July 8.

Also Read: An overview of the French elections | Explained

Mr. Faure’s socialists are one of the left-wing parties that make up the New Popular Front (NFP), the alliance that won the most seats – but no outright majority – in Sunday’s parliamentary election.