{"id":53618,"date":"2025-09-09T19:48:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T19:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/53618\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T19:48:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T19:48:07","slug":"macron-rewards-loyalty-by-naming-sebastien-lecornu-as-new-french-prime-minister-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/53618\/","title":{"rendered":"Macron rewards loyalty by naming Sebastien Lecornu as new French prime minister \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">French president <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/emmanuel-macron\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/emmanuel-macron\/\">Emmanuel Macron<\/a> has appointed defence minister Sebastien Lecornu as the country\u2019s new prime minister, the fourth in approximately a year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Mr Lecornu (39) is the youngest defence minister in French history and architect of a major military build-up through to 2030, spurred on by Russia\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/world\/europe\/ukraine-war\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/world\/europe\/ukraine-war\/\">war in Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A former conservative who joined Mr Macron\u2019s centrist movement in 2017, he has held posts in local governments, overseas territories and during the president\u2019s yellow vest \u201cgreat debate\u201d, where he helped manage mass anger with dialogue. He also offered talks on autonomy during unrest in Guadeloupe in 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">His rise reflects Mr Macron\u2019s instinct to reward loyalty, but also the need for continuity as repeated budget showdowns have toppled his predecessors and left France in drift.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Politicians toppled Mr Lecornu\u2019s predecessor Francois Bayrou and his government in a confidence vote on Monday, a new crisis for Europe\u2019s second-largest economy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Mr Bayrou gambled that politicians would back his view that France must slash public spending to rein in its huge debts. Instead, they seized on the vote to gang up against the 74-year-old centrist who was appointed by Mr Macron last December.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The demise of Mr Bayrou\u2019s short-lived minority government heralds renewed uncertainty and a risk of prolonged legislative deadlock for France as it wrestles with pressing challenges, including budget difficulties and, internationally, wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the shifting priorities of US president Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Drafting a budget will be a top priority for Mr Lecornu, and normally a new prime minister would form a new government before negotiating the national spending in parliament. But Mr Macron has asked Mr Lecornu to consult with all of the political parties in parliament first to try to agree on a budget before assembling his team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThe prime minister\u2019s action will be guided by the defence of our independence and our power, serving the French and the political and institutional stability for the unity of our country,\u201d Mr Macron said in a statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French president Emmanuel Macron has appointed defence minister Sebastien Lecornu as the country\u2019s new prime minister, the fourth&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,789,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-53618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-horizontal","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-world","22":"tag-world-news","23":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}