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26-09-2025
PARIS: French unions will hold another day of strike and protests on October 2 to put pressure on new Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu over their demands to scrap his predecessor’s austerity fiscal program, union leaders said.
Union leaders who met with Lecornu on Wednesday said they were not satisfied by his response to their last day of protest, attended by hundreds of thousands of people on September 18.
“The prime minister did not provide any clear answers to the workers’ demands, so for the unions, it’s a missed opportunity. It doesn’t add up,” said Marylise Leon, the head of CFDT, France’s largest union.
Just over two weeks after President Emmanuel Macron appointed Lecornu as his fifth prime minister in less than two years, the 39-year-old loyalist has yet to pull together a government or a draft budget for 2026. He has to deal with a divided parliament and pressure to fix France’s finances.
“There was a big turnout on September 18, and we need to step it up again on October 2,” said Sophie Binet, of the CGT union, describing Wednesday’s meeting as a missed opportunity where Lecornu made no clear commitment.
Lecornu has been little seen or heard in public since his appointment and has instead held a series of talks with party leaders and unionists to try and gather some support.
The prime minister and Macron are under pressure on one side from protesters and left-wing parties opposed to budget cuts and on the other, from investors concerned about the deficit. None of parliament’s three main groups has a majority.
France’s budget deficit last year was close to double the EU’s 3% ceiling. Lecornu will face a battle to gather parliamentary support for a budget for 2026.
Lecornu’s predecessor, Francois Bayrou, was ousted by parliament on September 8 over his plan for a 44 billion euro budget squeeze. Lecornu has not yet said what he will do with Bayrou’s plans.
Earlier, 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 will not rip up his pro-business reform agenda, under which taxes on business and the wealthy have been cut and the retirement age raised.
However, in an unusual move in French politics, Macron’s office said the president had asked Lecornu to hold talks with all political forces in parliament to find compromises on the budget and other policies before naming his cabinet.
“The President of the Republic has entrusted me with the task of building a government with a clear direction: the defense of our independence and our power, the service of the French people and political and institutional stability,” Lecornu posted on social media. “I wish to thank him for the confidence he has shown me by appointing me Prime Minister.”
Lecornu will become Macron’s fifth prime minister in less than two years after parliament, deeply split between three opposing ideological camps, ousted Francois Bayrou on Monday over his plans to tame the country’s ballooning debt.
The choice by the deeply unpopular Macron to appoint a loyalist risks appearing tone-deaf and inflaming popular discontent at a time when polls suggest voters are losing faith with France’s dysfunctional politics.
The news of his appointment was greeted with derision by leftist parties who called for voters to express their disdain in nationwide “Block Everything” protests on Wednesday. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
