French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has managed to keep his government afloat—at least for now—after surviving two dramatic no-confidence votes in the National Assembly on October 16, 2025. The outcome offers a temporary reprieve for both Lecornu and President Emmanuel Macron, but the political turbulence gripping France is far from over. The embattled prime minister now faces the daunting task of shepherding a contentious 2026 budget through a fractured parliament, all while the threat of further political upheaval looms large.
Lecornu’s survival was anything but certain in the lead-up to Thursday’s votes. According to AP, the first no-confidence motion, spearheaded by the hard-left France Unbowed party, garnered 271 votes—just 18 shy of the 289 required to topple the government in the 577-seat chamber. The second motion, put forth by Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and its allies, received a mere 144 votes, well short of the majority needed. The narrow margins underscore just how fragile Lecornu’s position remains.
The prime minister’s days-old government had already been under severe pressure. Lecornu, who was only reappointed last month after resigning amid criticism of his initial cabinet, is France’s fifth prime minister in less than two years, as reported by Al Jazeera. His appointment came just in time to submit a draft budget to parliament, a move seen as critical to ending months of political turmoil and uncertainty.
Central to Lecornu’s strategy for survival was his pledge to suspend President Macron’s highly controversial 2023 pension reform, which would gradually raise France’s retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030. This reform, a flagship of Macron’s second term, has been political kryptonite in a country where the average effective retirement age is 60.7—well below the OECD average of 64.4, according to France24. The pension reform has been fiercely opposed by the left, with Socialist Party lawmakers threatening to bring down Lecornu’s government if he did not agree to freeze the measure.
Lecornu’s concession paid off, at least in the short term. Only seven of the Socialist Party’s 69 lawmakers broke ranks to support the France Unbowed motion, effectively giving Lecornu the crucial support he needed. "Sparing the premier was in no way a pact," Socialist lawmaker Laurent Baumel warned after the votes, as cited by Al Jazeera. He called for "new concessions" in the upcoming budget negotiations, making clear that the government’s reprieve was conditional and temporary.
The conservative Republicans, with 50 lawmakers, also largely withheld support for Lecornu’s removal. Only one Republican voted for the first no-confidence motion, and three for the second, but their restraint was more about political calculation than genuine support. Éric Ciotti, a former Republicans leader now allied with Le Pen’s far right, urged his colleagues, "Don’t compromise yourselves by supporting this government. Don’t swallow this snake, this boa, this pink alligator. No voter on the right will forgive you." The warning highlights the delicate balancing act facing Lecornu: his government’s survival depends on the continued tolerance of parties that are deeply skeptical of his leadership.
The votes themselves were a spectacle of political brinkmanship. Had Lecornu lost either one, he and his ministers would have been forced to resign immediately, and President Macron would almost certainly have faced immense pressure to dissolve the National Assembly and call snap legislative elections. The last time Macron took that gamble, in June 2024, it resulted in a hung parliament and a surge in seats for the far right, plunging France into the current deadlock.
Now, with no party holding a clear majority, the National Assembly is split into three ideological blocs—left, right, and center—making consensus on critical issues like deficit-reducing budgets nearly impossible. As France24 noted, there are 265 lawmakers from parties that openly sought to topple Lecornu, and only a handful of rebels from other groups joined their cause. The government’s victory was widely expected by investors, with French bond markets remaining steady after the votes, but the underlying instability is far from resolved.
Lecornu’s promise not to use a special constitutional power—famously employed by Macron’s government to force through the 2023 pension reform without parliamentary approval—was another key factor in his survival. "The government will make suggestions, we will debate, and you will vote," Lecornu declared in a speech to lawmakers, as reported by Al Jazeera. The 39-year-old Macron loyalist emphasized his commitment to democratic debate, but many in the opposition remain unconvinced.
Yaël Braun-Pivet, president of the National Assembly and a close ally of Macron, struck a more optimistic note. "I am pleased to see that today there is a majority in the National Assembly that is operating in this spirit: work, the search for compromise, the best possible effort," she said. Yet even she acknowledged the immense challenges ahead, as the government attempts to pass a budget that will require both tax hikes and spending cuts to address France’s ballooning state deficit and debt.
France’s fiscal woes are not trivial. The country’s debt-to-GDP ratio is the third highest in the European Union, after Greece and Italy, and stands at nearly twice the EU’s 60 percent ceiling. Under pressure from Brussels to rein in its deficit, France faces an uphill battle to implement cost-cutting measures that have already brought down two of Lecornu’s predecessors. The Socialists, emboldened by their recent leverage, have now set their sights on including a tax on billionaires in the 2026 budget, further complicating negotiations.
The political stakes are enormous. Marine Le Pen and her National Rally see the current chaos as their best opportunity yet to capture power in the 2027 presidential race, when Macron’s second and final term ends. Le Pen accused lawmakers of sparing Lecornu out of "terror of elections," and said she was waiting with "growing impatience" for Parliament’s dissolution. If Lecornu’s government falters in the coming weeks, Macron may have no choice but to dissolve parliament and call new elections—a move that could tilt the balance decisively in favor of the far right.
As the dust settles from this week’s drama, one thing is clear: Lecornu’s government has won a temporary reprieve, but the underlying divisions in French politics remain as deep as ever. The coming weeks will test whether compromise is possible in a parliament where every vote counts and every concession risks further instability. The fate of France’s budget—and perhaps its political future—hangs in the balance.
