The newly appointed French Prime Minister Sèbastien Lecornu has appointed a new government, which will be made up of 34 ministers. According to Lecornu’s entourage, the prime minister “proposed a mix of civil society with expert profiles and young parliamentarians”.
The executive includes several members already present in previous governments, coming from President Macron’s centrist camp and his conservative allies, as well as some personalities from outside the political sphere. The Minister of Economy, Roland Lescure, has been confirmed.
Among the new developments, the appointment of the Paris police prefect Laurent Nunez as Interior Minister and the head of the national railway company SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou, as Labor Minister. Nunez succeeds the conservative Bruno Retailleau, whose criticism of the government team accelerated the fall of the first Lecornu executive.
The new ministers with a technical profile also include senior civil servant Edouard Geffray (National Education) and Monique Barbut, president of WWF France, at the Ecological Transition. Among the political appointments, there is the confirmation of the Foreign Minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, and the Economy Minister, Roland Lescure, as well as prominent personalities such as Gerald Darmanin (Justice) and Rachida Dati (Culture). Catherine Vautrin takes over as Defense Minister. Now the question is whether the new government will be able to overcome the no-confidence vote in Parliament, which has already brought down Lecornu’s predecessors, the conservative Michel Barnier and the centrist Francois Bayrou, in less than a year.
The leader of the nationalist Rassemblement National, Marine Le Pen, and the radical left of La France Insoumise have already announced motions of censure. The government’s main mission will be the rapid presentation of a budget law capable of being approved by the National Assembly and contributing to the recovery of the public debt, which in June reached 115.6% of GDP.