French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday re-appointed Sebastien Lecornu as Prime Minister, just days after his resignation, asking him to try again to form a government and produce a budget in a bid to end the country’s political deadlock.
Mr. Lecornu’s re-appointment followed days of intense negotiations and came less than a week after he resigned amid infighting in his freshly named government. France is struggling with mounting economic challenges and ballooning debt.
Macron’s office said in a statement on Friday that he has now been tasked with forming a new cabinet.
After the announcement on Friday evening, Mr Lecornu said it was “my duty to accept the mission entrusted to me by the president” and “to respond to the everyday problems of our compatriots”.
He added: “We need to put an end to this political crisis, which is exasperating the French people, and to this instability, which is bad for France’s image and its interests.”
Mr Lecornu also said that whoever joined his government would have to renounce their personal ambitions to succeed Macron in 2027, and pledged his cabinet would “embody renewal and diversity”.
He will first work on attempting to deliver a budget by the end of Monday, as economists in Europe have previously warned that the EU’s second-largest economy faces a Greek-style debt crisis.
Political Rivals React
Jordan Bardella, president of France’s far-right National Rally party, said he would vote down the new government, claiming “the Elysee Palace, is a bad joke, a democratic disgrace and a humiliation for the French people”.
Party leader Marine Le Pen said: “All the political parties that helped Emmanuel Macron gain the time he needed to implement this shameful manipulation will be held to account at the next elections.”
Mathilde Panot, head of the hard-left France Unbowed party, also said that “never before has a President wanted so much to govern by disgust and anger”.
“Lecornu, who resigned on Monday, was reappointed by Macron on Friday,” she added. “Macron miserably postpones the inevitable: his departure.”
Stephane Troussel of the Socialist Party called the latest announcement “a farce in which Emmanuel Macron is the protagonist. A bad joke for millions of citizens who expect change and hope for the future”.
He added: “They can rest assured that this President’s reign will soon be coming to an end.”