Political crisis deepens in France

PARIS:

France's new prime minister resigned on Monday after less than a month in office, sinking the country further into a political crisis and piling pressure on President Emmanuel Macron to find a way out of the deadlock.

Sebastien Lecornu stepped down just 14 hours after naming his government and had been due to hold his first cabinet meeting in the afternoon.

But his new government raised hackles across the spectrum before ministers had even entered their new offices and he risked an immediate no-confidence vote in parliament this week.

Lecornu's 27-day stint in office was the shortest ever for a prime minister in modern France.

"The conditions were not fulfilled for me to carry out my function as prime minister," Lecornu said, denouncing the "partisan appetites" of factions who he said had forced his resignation.

With the uncertainty in France causing tremors across Europe, a German government spokesman said a "stable France" was an "important contribution to stability in Europe".

Lecornu's resignation compounds a political crisis that has rocked France for over a year, after centrist Macron called legislative elections in the summer of 2024 which ended in a hung parliament.

The Paris stock market slipped after the announcement, with the CAC 40 index of blue-chip stocks down around 1.7 percent at around 0900 GMT.

Macron has resisted calls to order snap legislative polls again and has also ruled out resigning himself before his mandate ends in 2027.

He could also look for a new prime minister, who would be the eighth of the president's mandate but would face a struggle to survive without radical change.

The Socialist party has urged Macron to name a prime minister from the left, party official Pierre Jouvet said, after recent governments tilted to the right.