New French prime minister Sebastien Lecornu yesterday resigned after less than a month in office, sinking the country further into a political crisis and piling pressure on President Emmanuel Macron to find a way out of the deadlock.
Lecornu stepped down just 14 hours after naming his government and had been due to hold his first Cabinet meeting in the afternoon. However, his new government had raised hackles across the spectrum before ministers even entered their new offices and he risked an immediate no confidence vote in parliament this week.
Lecornu’s 27-day stint in office was the shortest ever for a prime minister in modern France.
Photo: Reuters
“The conditions were not fulfilled for me to carry out my function as prime minister,” Lecornu said, denouncing the “partisan appetites” of factions who he said had forced his resignation.
With the instability in France causing tremors across Europe, a German government spokesman said a “stable France” was an “important contribution to stability in Europe.”
Lecornu’s resignation compounds a political crisis that has rocked France for more than a year, after Macron called legislative elections last year, which ended in a hung parliament.
Macron has resisted calls to again order snap legislative polls and has also ruled out resigning himself before his mandate ends in 2027. He could also look for a new prime minister who would be the eighth of the president’s mandate, but would face a struggle to survive without radical change.
The 2027 presidential elections are expected to be a historic crossroads in French politics, with the French far right under Marine Le Pen sensing its best ever chance of taking power.
Le Pen said it would be “wise” for Macron to resign, but also urged snap legislative polls as “absolutely necessary.”
Far-right National Rally (RN) President Jordan Bardella said he expected the legislative elections to take place, adding: “The RN will obviously be ready to govern.”
Macron named Lecornu, a 39-year-old former defense minister and close confidant, to the post on Sept. 9.
He had hoped his ally would take the heat out of the domestic crisis and allow him to focus on his efforts on the international stage, including working with the US to end Russia’s war on Ukraine.
However, the largely unchanged Cabinet Lecornu unveiled late on Sunday sparked fierce criticism, in particular from the right-wing Republicans who were part of the coalition government.
The Republicans were not going to offer Macron and his allies “a final lap” after the largely unchanged Cabinet, party Vice President Francois-Xavier Bellamy said.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
RSS