Embattled French PM Sebastien Lecornu survives no-confidence vote

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu survived the latest no confidence vote (Thibault Camus/AP)

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu survived a vote of no-confidence on Thursday that could have toppled his fragile new government and plunged France deeper into political chaos.

The National Assembly vote clears the way for the embattled Mr Lecornu to pursue what could be an even greater challenge: getting a 2026 budget for the European Union’s second-largest economy through Parliament’s powerful but bitterly divided lower house before the end of the year.

Mr Lecornu’s survival also spares any immediate need for President Emmanuel Macron to again dissolve the National Assembly and call snap legislative elections, a hazardous option that the French leader had signalled he might take if Mr Lecornu fell.

The close ally of the French president faced two no-confidence motions filed by Mr Macron’s fiercest opponents — the hard-left France Unbowed party and Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally and her allies in Parliament.

The 577-seat chamber voted on the France Unbowed motion first — and it fell short, with 271 members supporting it. It had needed a majority of 289 votes to succeed.

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu can now turn his focus to the 2026 budget (Thibault Camus/AP)

Politicians are now voting on Ms Le Pen’s second motion, but it is thought even less likely to succeed, because the far-right leader’s opponents on the left are not expected to support it.

But Mr Lecornu isn’t out of the woods yet.

To get the votes he needed, Mr Lecornu dangled the possibility of rolling back one of the flagship but most unpopular reforms of Mr Macron’s presidency, which will gradually raise France’s retirement age from 62 to 64.

Mr Lecornu’s proposed suspension of the 2023 pension reform helped convince some opposition politicians to grudgingly decide not to back the efforts to topple him, at least for now.

But they could change tack and support any future no-confidence motions if they don’t get what they want in the budget negotiations that are sure to be fractious.

Mr Lecornu has promised not to use a special constitutional power to railroad the budget through Parliament without members’ approval, which was the tool that Mr Macron’s government employed to impose the 2023 pension reform despite a firestorm of protests.

Building consensus in Parliament for tax hikes, spending cuts and other budget measures to start reining in France’s ballooning state deficit and debt promises to be extremely difficult.