If Sebastien Lecornu’s assumption proves correct, the naming of a new prime minister would, at least for now, push France away from other options available to Mr Macron that could plunge the European Union’s second-largest economy into even greater uncertainty.
They include dissolving parliament’s powerful lower house to trigger a new legislative election, which backfired on Mr Macron when he last did that, stacking the National Assembly with opponents of the French leader.
Then French defence minister Sebastien Lecornu, right, and France’s President Emmanuel Macron talk at the end of an address by the president to army leaders in Paris (Ludovic Marin/AP)
Mr Macron could also resign, although he has previously ruled out that option and Mr Lecornu cautioned against it.
In an eagerly awaited interview with broadcaster France Televisions, the prime minister who resigned abruptly on Monday did not say who his replacement might be, but signalled that he expects that that will be the option that Mr Macron takes.
“I think that the situation allows the president to name a prime minister in the next 48 hours,” he said.
Otherwise, however, Mr Lecornu’s interview left more questions than it answered about how Mr Macron intends to dig France out of the protracted political crisis that has gripped the country since the June 2024 dissolution of the National Assembly.
Without a stable majority in the 577-seat chamber, Mr Macron’s minority governments have since lurched from crisis to crisis, with four prime ministers falling in quick succession.
Mr Lecornu’s resignation on Monday morning came just 14 hours after he had named a new cabinet the night before.
French socialist party secretary general Olivier Faure and Boris Vallaud, president of the socialist parliament members at the National Assembly, arrive for a meeting with outgoing prime minister Sebastien Lecornu (Christophe Ena/AP)
To buy more time to weigh his options, Mr Macron then asked the 39-year-old Mr Lecornu — a close ally who had previously served as defence minister — to make a last-ditch 48-hour effort to reach out again to parties in the National Assembly, to see whether he could build consensus behind France’s next budget, an urgent national priority.
Mr Lecornu said that those talks — except with Mr Macron’s fiercest opponents on the far left and far right that refused negotiations — had made progress.
He said that “an absolute majority” of National Assembly lawmakers do not want parliament’s lower house to be dissolved again and suggested that a budget might be attainable for 2026.
“I feel that a path is still possible. It is difficult,” he said.
Mr Lecornu signalled that whoever Mr Macron chooses as the next prime minister, it will not be him again.
“I’m not chasing the job,” he said. “My mission is finished.”
The onus now shifts to Mr Macron and his next steps.
He has remained conspicuously silent about the latest crisis, communicating publicly only in brief statements from his office.