Embattled French PM Sébastien Lecornu survives no-confidence votes in Parliament

PARIS (AP) — French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu survived two votes of no-confidence Thursday that could have toppled his fragile new government and plunged France deeper into political chaos.

The National Assembly votes clear the way for the embattled 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.

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 signaled that he might take if Lecornu fell.

The close ally of the French president faced two no-confidence motions filed by 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 by 18 votes, with 271 lawmakers supporting it. It needed a majority of 289 votes to succeed.

Le Pen’s second motion got just 144 votes, well short of a majority.

But Lecornu isn’t out of the woods yet.

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

Lecornu’s proposed suspension of the 2023 pension reform helped convince opposition Socialist Party lawmakers to grudgingly decide not to back the efforts to topple him, at least for now. With 69 lawmakers, Socialist backing for Lecornu’s removal would have tipped the votes against him. But just seven Socialists broke ranks in voting for the France Unbowed motion.

The conservative Republicans, with 50 lawmakers, also withheld support for Lecornu’s removal, with just one exception.

But Lecornu’s still fragile position could yet crumble in the coming weeks or months if the Socialist or Republicans lawmakers change tack and support any future no-confidence votes if they don’t get what they want in the budget negotiations that are sure to be fractious.

Lecornu has promised not to use a special constitutional power to railroad the budget through Parliament without lawmakers’ approval — which was the tool that 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.