Paris in crisis: Lecornu returns as prime minister as the 2026 budget hangs in the balance
After a government that lasted less than a day, Macron reappointed Sebastien Lecornu as prime minister, tasked with securing a majority for the budget by the summer and avoiding a fall into snap elections.
Paris over the past seven days produced a political twist unusual even by French standards: President Emmanuel Macron accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, then within forty-eight hours brought him back to the same post with the task of finding a parliamentary majority for the 2026 budget. The government Lecornu had formed lasted, according to Assemblee Nationale data, just fourteen hours, the shortest mandate of any French government in the modern history of the Fifth Republic.
For Serbia and the wider Balkan neighbourhood, a weakening of executive power in Paris is no abstract topic. France, alongside Germany, is the main voice in the Council of the EU on the pace of enlargement, aid packages to Kyiv, and the revision of the Union budget for the next seven-year perspective. Every pause in the functioning of Paris is also a pause in Brussels processes that directly touch Serbia’s negotiating chapters, primarily 22 (regional policy) and 33 (financial provisions), to which European funds are tied.
Lecornu, who served as defence minister until last October, was given by Macron a two-day deadline to hold new talks with parliamentary groups. The president, according to a statement from the Elysee Palace, judged that national stability was the priority above all political calculation. National Rally leader Marine Le Pen and the party’s president Jordan Bardella declined the invitation to consultations and reiterated the call for snap elections, while the left-wing France Unbowed boycotted the meeting at Matignon.
Why the 2026 budget matters for Serbia’s European perspective
The dispute over the 2026 budget is not a fiscal formality. By the end of the year, Paris must send Brussels a plan to bring the deficit below 3 percent of gross domestic product, an obligation under the revised European stability package. The centrist coalition around Macron and part of the Republicans share the general logic of austerity, but differ on the structure of expenditure: conservatives want cuts to social benefits, while Lecornu’s team is trying to preserve the foundations primarily in defence and research, where Paris has, over the past year, leaned its own industrial plan.
Moise Sheklarski, an analyst of French politics at the Brussels-based Jacques Delors Centre, told Politico Europe that Lecornu’s second mandate is “a test that will not be solved by parliamentary arithmetic but by discipline within the Republican camp itself.” On his reading, if the budget is adopted through a compromise vote by 21 June, Macron gains room to focus on foreign-policy files, including the next round of talks on the EU aid package to Ukraine and the summit in Tivat. If it falls, Paris enters snap parliamentary elections in the heat of a summer crisis, directly affecting the timing of the European Council summit announced for 26 and 27 June.
Brussels careful, Berlin louder
The official signals from Brussels so far have been measured. European Commission spokeswoman Paula Pinho said at Monday’s briefing that the Commission “is following the situation and expects every member state to meet its obligations under the fiscal framework,” without commenting on the internal political calculations. EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas, on the margins of the Foreign Affairs Council, stressed that “the French voice in joint decisions must remain full,” language read in the jargon of Brussels diplomacy as a reminder that a pause in Paris complicates the adoption of the package on Ukraine and the sanctions on Russia.
Berlin was more direct. Chancellor Friedrich Merz, in the Bundestag, responding to a question from Green MP Britta Hasselmann, said the German government “is counting on Paris finding a stable majority before summer” and confirmed that the recently formed Franco-German Council for Defence and Security continues without interruption. With that, Merz, who opened the body in Paris with Macron on 7 May, signalled Berlin does not want Paris’s slide into crisis to spill over onto the joint German-French projects in armaments and industrial policy.
For Belgrade observers, the most important question remains whether Paris will be able to participate in good time in the finalisation of the EU growth plan for the Western Balkans, whose second tranche of funds is due in autumn 2026. France traditionally was the voice insisting on rule-of-law benchmarks before new tranches are unlocked, and any void in Paris means the German and Polish delegations gain more room to set the pace and the conditions.
Lecornu’s deadline to the president expires on Tuesday evening Central European time. If the next version of the government survives its first no-confidence vote, it enters budget negotiations with parliamentary groups that must be concluded by the second half of June for the text to reach the Senate on time.
