France's prime minister wins confidence vote a few days after being renamed

The delay followed Lecorn's decision Tuesday to support the suspension of the 2023 pension reform in an effort to keep his cabinet long enough to adopt a savings budget by the end of the year.

The left-wing Socialist Party (PS) had threatened to vote for the prime minister's collapse if he refused to suspend reform, under which the retirement age would expand from 62 to 64.

Without SP support, two separate motions submitted Thursday by the far leftist party, unconfirmed France, and far-right National Rally, failed to reach the number of votes needed to bring down Lecorn.

After the vote, Lecornu said he is willing to start “for budgetary talks, expected to begin in Parliament next week.

You can see how serious the situation is... The debates had to begin”, the head of the Government for BFMTV said.

But Socialist leader Olivier Faure warned that his party could again back a motion to overthrow the government.

“If Government does not meet its commitments, especially for suspending pension reform, we will immediately vote against cabinet”, Faure said on X.

France, the eurozone's second-largest economy, has been in a political paralysis since President Emmanuel Macro announced early elections last year, with the aim of consolidating its power.

But the elections resulted in a blocked and growing Parliament for the extreme right.

Lecornu, the seventh prime minister appointed by Macron since 2017, now has to run a budget of savings through a deeply divided parliament by the end of the year.

Lecornu, who became prime minister last month, resigned last Monday following criticism of his first cabinet.

But it was renamed several days later and formed a new cabinet in time to present the draft budget in Parliament.

Facing pressure from the European Union to lower the country's deficit and debt, France faces a difficult battle for austerity measures that brought down Lecorn's two predecessors.

The debt report. France's GDP is the third highest in the European Union after Greece and Italy and approximately twice the EU border of 60 percent.

LeCornu has pledged that he will not use a constitutional tool that has been used to pass any budget without a vote since 2022, and has promised that all laws will undergo debate.

“The government will make proposals, we will debate and you will vote”, the 39-year-old, who is loyal to Macron, stressed in a speech to MPs Tuesday.

But the opposition has challenged his optimism.

National Rally leader Marine Le Pen accused the MPs of giving Lecorn a “opportunity due to fears of elections”, saying it “impatiently” is waiting for the distribution of Parliament.

The extreme right sees this as its best chance so far to take power in the 2027 presidential election, when the second and last mandate of Macron ends. / REL