Macron reappoints outgoing PM Sébastien Lecornu, far right calls for snap legislative elections

‘I accept out of duty’: Macron asks outgoing PM Lecornu to try again to form government

Just four days after resigning from the role, Sébastien Lecornu was reappointed as prime minister on Friday by French President Emmanuel Macron. The outgoing and now incoming premier will have to try and find, once again, a way out of France’s worst political crisis in decades.

Marine Le Pen calls for a vote of no confidence

‘Time for work. It’s about time!’, says National Assembly president Yaël Braun-Pivet

‘Incredible’: Green Party leader Marine Tondelier reacts with irony

‘Macron can do nothing other than be Macron’, says France Unbowed co-president Jean-Luc Mélenchon

Far-right National Rally president Jordan Bardella says his party will immediately vote down ‘doomed coalition’

France’s main far-right party on Friday vowed to immediately seek to bring down the new French government led by Sebastien Lecornu after his reappointment as premier, saying it did not have “any future”.

Labelling the move by an “isolated and disconnected” President Emmanuel Macron to reappoint Lecornu a “bad joke”, National Rally (RN) leader Jordan Bardella said his party will “immediately of course censure this coalition which does not have any future” through a no-confidence motion in parliament.

Lecornu says he accepts being reappointed PM ‘out of duty’

Macron reappoints outgoing premier Sébastien Lecornu as French prime minister

French President Emmanuel Macron has reappointed his outgoing prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, back into that position, just four days after Lecornu gave his resignation.

“The president of the republic has nominated Mr Sébastien Lecornu as prime minister and has tasked him with forming a government,” the Élysée Palace said in a statement.

Will Macron give the keys of the country to the far right?

Renaud Foucart, senior lecturer in economics at Lancaster University, tells FRANCE 24 that French President Emmanuel Macron will likely steer clear of snap elections and simply “kick the can down the road” to keep the far right at bay until 2027.

“Macron seems to be trying the same thing again and again and again. And now, the word on the street: maybe he’ll bring back Jean-Louis Borloo”, he says in his analysis.

Could a technocratic government end France’s political crisis?

As France awaits with bated breath for the announcement of their next PM, its left wing appears more united than the divided right – fuelling talks of a technocratic government as a possible way out, FRANCE 24’s Rochelle Ferguson analyses.

Macron believes there is way to ‘avoid dissolution of parliament’, his entourage says

According to his entourage, Macron believes that the “meeting with heads of French political parties showed it remained possible to find compromise and avoid the dissolution of parliament”, Reuters reported.

‘For us, things are clear: a vote of no confidence next week’, says France Unbowed’s Éric Coquerel

Left-wing parties express disappointment after Macron’s emergency meeting

Left-wing party leaders who were invited to Macron’s emergency meeting at Élysée Palace apparently left the venue stunned and disappointed, according to FRANCE 24’s correspondent Ellen Gainsford.

Our international affairs editor, Rochelle Ferguson, analyses the afternoon’s developments and tries to make sense of what we can expect to hear in the coming hours.

We don’t guarantee our support for new PM, says Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure

French Socialist leader Olivier Faure said President Emmanuel Macron was not ready to pick a new prime minister from the left and that there was no guarantee his party would not vote down the next government.

Another collapsed government would raise the likelihood of Macron calling a snap election, a scenario seen benefitting the far right the most.

“We’re not looking for parliament to be dissolved, but nor are we afraid,” Faure told reporters as he left a meeting between Macron and party chiefs.

Faure said Macron did not address the Socialist Party’s concerns about the contested 2023 pension reform, which raised the retirement age by two years to 64.

French Green Party leader Tondelier: ‘We are leaving this meeting stunned’

French Green Party leader Marine Tondelier left a meeting with President Emmanuel Macron and political party chiefs with the clear impression the president does not intend to name a prime minister from her camp, she said.

She added Macron told the meeting he was ready to delay the further application of a 2023 pension reform until a scheduled presidential election in 2027, a move she said was inadequate.

French centrist leader Panifous: Macron to pick new PM in coming hours

The leader of the centrist political group LIOT, Laurent Panifous, said he expected President Emmanuel Macron to name a new prime minister in the coming hours, following a meeting between the head of state and party chiefs.

He also said his impression was that Macron did not plan to dissolve parliament.

Pension reform was the main issue discussed in the meeting, Panifous told reporters.

French political crisis not solved, but there are ‘potential routes forward’, expert says

A leading commentator on French politics has told FRANCE 24 that while France’s political crisis has not yet been solved, there do seem to be “potential routes forward”.  FRANCE 24 spoke to Andrew Smith, historian of modern France at Queen Mary University of London.

Saving Macron means ‘worsening the chaos’, says France Unbowed’s Paul Vannier

Paul Vannier of France Unbowed said on social media on Friday that if the participants attending the closed door meeting at the Élysée Palace do not demand Macron’s departure, they will “worsen the chaos”.

The hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party are excluded from the ongoing discussions with Macron in Paris.

‘It is time to respect the vote of the French people’, Socialist Party leader says