France's Macron names loyalist Sebastien Lecornu as new Prime Minister

French President Emmanuel Macron named loyalist Sebastien Lecornu, a one-time conservative protege who rallied behind his 2017 presidential run, as prime minister on Tuesday, defying expectations he might tack towards the left. 

The choice of Lecornu, 39, indicates Macron's determination to press on with a minority government that stands firmly behind his pro-business economic reform agenda, under which taxes on business and the wealthy have been cut and the retirement age raised. 

However, Macron's office said in a statement the president had asked Lecornu to hold talks with all political forces in parliament in view of finding compromises on the budget and other policies before naming his cabinet, in an unusual move in French politics. 

Macron was forced to appoint a fifth prime minister in less than two years after parliament ousted Francois Bayrou nine months into the role over his plans for taming the country's ballooning debt. 

In handing the job to Lecornu, Macron risks alienating the centre-left Socialist Party and leaves the president and his government depending on Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally for support in parliament. 

The Socialists' immediate reaction was scathing. 

"Regardless of Sebastien Lecornu's personal qualities, his nomination is a slap in the face of parliament," said Philippe Brun, the Socialist lawmaker who has been in charge of budget negotiations, told Reuters. 

"Macron naming one of his followers has the whiff of an end-of-reign." 

Nationalist leader Marine Le Pen said on X the "president (was) firing the last shot of Macronism, holed up with his small circle of loyalists." 

However, her protege Jordan Bardella appeared to extend a lifeline to Lecornu, in a sign their National Rally party could seek to influence the new cabinet's fortunes. 

"We will judge - without illusion - the new prime minister on his merits," he said, while warning the party still kept strict "red lines". 

Lecornu's immediate priority will be to forge consensus on a budget for 2026, a task that proved the undoing of Bayrou who had pushed for aggressive spending cuts to rein in a deficit standing at nearly double the EU ceiling of 3% of GDP. 

BUDGET IN FOCUS 

The political upheaval this week lays bare deepening turmoil in France that is weakening the euro zone's second-biggest economy as it sinks deeper into a debt quagmire. 

Lecornu's nomination is not without peril for Macron. He risks appearing tone-deaf at a time of simmering popular discontent and with polls showing voters want change. Nationwide "Block Everything" protests threaten widespread disruption on Wednesday. 

Lecornu most recently served as Macron's defence minister, overseeing an increase in defence spending and helping shape European thinking on security guarantees for Ukraine in the event a peace deal with Russia is brokered. 

Lecornu entered politics canvassing for former President Nicolas Sarkozy when he was 16. He became mayor of a small town in Normandy when he turned 18 and then former President Nicolas Sarkozy's youngest government adviser at the age of 22. 

He left the conservative Les Republicains party to join Macron's centrist political movement when the president was first elected in 2017. Five years later, he ran Macron's re-election campaign. 

By naming a minister from his own camp with a conservative background, Macron appears to have decided to preserve his economic legacy at all cost. 

Socialists had pledged to reverse some of his flagship pro-business policies, including the scrapping of a wealth tax and a raised retirement age, planks the president considers essential to making France attractive to investors. 

Lecornu has at times had the ear of Marine Le Pen and her party chief Jordan Bardella, with whom Lecornu had a secret dinner last year. RN officials have told Reuters they could maintain some kind of tacit support to Lecornu if he was named premier. 

The RN has said it will not tolerate tax increases on hard-working people.