Why the Lecornu disaster leaves Macron with so few options

Good morning. A scoop to start: The EU has agreed to impose new restrictions on the travel of Russian diplomats within the bloc, in response to allegations that Vladimir Putin’s spies are using diplomatic cover to plan and execute a surge in sabotage, arson and other hybrid attacks.

Today, our Paris correspondent explains the utter chaos in France, and our economy correspondent reports on Bulgaria’s withheld Covid-19 recovery funds.

Back to the ballot box?

France’s political crisis has taken a turn for the worse after President Emmanuel Macron’s Mr Fixit, Sébastien Lecornu, resigned as prime minister barely a month after being named, writes Sarah White.

Context: Lecornu stepped down yesterday before his newly appointed cabinet was even sworn in, as attempts to garner simultaneous support from the centre-right and the centre-left Socialists to hold his government together unravelled. He was France’s shortest-serving prime minister since the Fifth Republic was established in 1958.

His departure put the onus once again on Macron to find a way out, after churning through two other prime ministers already since he called a snap parliamentary election in 2024. That fragmented the lower house and left his centrists well short of a majority.

Macron yesterday gave Lecornu 48 hours to talk to the other parties and see if a consensus was still possible — but the clamour for another snap election is louder than ever.

“We’re at the end of the road, there is no solution,” far-right leader Marine Le Pen told reporters. “The only wise decision in these circumstances is to go back to the ballot box.”

Whether Macron will take that route is still unclear. His surprise decision to dissolve parliament in June 2024 on the back of poor European election results and the rise of the far-right shocked even his own party — and backfired spectacularly by sapping his own room to manoeuvre in a totally divided national assembly.

Polls show Macron’s camp would only bleed more support in another vote. But the president’s options for naming another premier are thin, and the clock is ticking on passing a budget for 2026, rattling markets. France has a few safeguards that would avoid a US-style shutdown to keep salaries flowing, but the country is also under pressure to reduce a gaping deficit.

Attempts to forge a consensus around a centre-right figure have been tried, tested and now failed three times.

Macron could turn to the left, but risks naming a candidate who would want to overturn his pensions reform, and who may not be able to find the parliamentary maths to survive anyway.

Some analysts believe the option of a technocrat figure could be more seriously envisaged this time. That may be a way for Macron to buy some more time, but the spectres of a new round of elections and further political turmoil loom large.

Chart du jour: Dirty skies

Airlines, airports and campaigners disagree on whether the best way to decarbonise aviation is through cleaner fuels, carbon offsetting or reversing the growth in passenger numbers.

Reform pains

Brussels has withheld around €200mn from Bulgaria’s post-pandemic recovery funds for failing to comply with anti-corruption commitments, write Paola Tamma and Marton Dunai.

Context: The EU’s Covid-19 recovery funds are paid out based on countries’ payment requests, after they meet reform and investment targets. Bulgaria this summer requested a tranche of €653mn.

The European Commission partially cleared the request on Friday, but provisionally blocked the payment of around a third of it, about €200mn, because Sofia didn’t meet a condition related to the disbursement: it did not manage to reform the Anti-Corruption and Illegal Assets Forfeiture Commission.

The Bulgarian government had passed the necessary reform, raising the threshold to appoint members to the anti-corruption commission to a two-thirds parliamentary majority. But the country’s top court ruled this was unconstitutional, and brought it back down to a simple majority.

That in turn did not satisfy Brussels, leading to the paused payment. 

The government in Sofia agrees. “A simple majority is too low a threshold for appointing someone who has the right to investigate anybody”, said a government official.

The ruling Gerb party has been particularly sensitive on the issue after its leader Boyko Borisov was briefly arrested three years ago on charges that later proved unfounded.

Sofia has six months to find a way to get around the constitutional court ruling, and demonstrate it meets the required threshold of political and financial independence — or risk losing the money.

The issue comes as the anti-corruption commission pressed graft charges against Blagomir Kotsev, mayor of Bulgaria’s third-largest city Varna and member of the opposition, who has been jailed since June even as he denies the charges. The opposition believes the charges are politically motivated.

What to watch today

1. European Commission to present artificial intelligence strategy and tariffs on cheap steel imports.

2. Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Luc Frieden speaks at the European parliament in Strasbourg.

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