France’s reappointed Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, narrowly survived his first no-confidence vote on Thursday, underscoring the deep fractures and exhaustion within Emmanuel Macron’s collapsing political machinery. The motion—filed by the far-left France Unbowed (LFI) party—fell short of the 289 votes needed to bring down the government, with 271 deputies voting in favor and 18 against, sparing Lecornu by a slim margin that only highlights his weakened authority.
A second no-confidence motion from the far-right National Rally (RN) is set to follow, but few expect it to pass. Still, the back-to-back challenges illustrate a humiliating level of distrust in a government that has lost both credibility and stability. Even the Socialist Party’s Olivier Faure, who refrained from censuring Lecornu “as long as Parliament is respected,” did so out of political calculation, not confidence. The prime minister’s desperate promise to freeze the deeply unpopular pension reforms until 2028 is a temporary appeasement—an admission that Macron’s reforms have backfired spectacularly and fractured the country.
France is now staggering through months of political chaos—one government after another collapsing. Michel Barnier’s government fell last December over the 2025 budget. His successor, François Bayrou, was crushed by revolt in Parliament after proposing to abolish public holidays to save billions, before losing a confidence vote in September. Lecornu’s own tenure has been a revolving door of failure: appointed on September 9, resigned under pressure on October 6, then shamelessly reappointed four days later. His new Cabinet, unveiled on October 12, now faces two simultaneous no-confidence motions—proof that France’s political system, under Macron’s leadership, has descended into instability, fatigue, and farce.
