French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s government will live to see another day. After a high-stakes policy speech and the unveiling of his draft budget on Tuesday, the Socialist Party (PS) said it would not join efforts to topple the government, handing the 39-year-old premier – reappointed on Friday after resigning just days earlier – a temporary lifeline tied to concessions.
In his address to parliament, Lecornu pledged to suspend French President Emmanuel Macron’s signature pension reform. That policy would have raised the retirement age from 62 to 64, and its removal was a totemic demand from the left. The prime minister said the suspension would cost €400 million ($460m) in 2026 and €1.8 billion ($2.1bn) in 2027.
It’s a high price to pay for political stability but the prevailing sentiment was that France could not afford a repeat of the chaos that has gripped the country over the past two weeks. Macron, who has faced unprecedented pressure and calls to resign, will also be breathing a small sigh of relief.
Earlier in the day, the president warned party leaders that a no-confidence vote would amount to triggering snap elections, in which France’s far right would be expected to perform strongly.
Boris Vallaud, the Socialist leader in the National Assembly, did not explicitly commit to saving the government but said the PS was “capable of making compromises,” while noting the party’s leverage.
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