French PM faces day of reckoning, but likely to survive no-confidence votes

PARIS - French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu appears likely to survive two no-confidence votes in parliament on Thursday after offering to suspend President Emmanuel Macron’s landmark pension reform to win support from the left.

Lecornu, already France’s shortest-serving prime minister in modern times before he was re-appointed last week, had faced the prospect of an even shorter second stint in office until he made the pensions reform concession on Tuesday.

The Socialists, who hold the key to Lecornu’s political survival, welcomed the move, saying they would not support two no-confidence motions due to be voted on Thursday, one from the far-left and the other from the far-right National Rally.

Despite Lecornu’s offer to mothball the reform until after the 2027 presidential election, the result is expected to be close, with potential rebels from the Socialists or conservative Republicans injecting a measure of doubt into the result.

There are 265 lawmakers in parliament from parties that have said they will vote to topple Lecornu, with only 289 votes needed for his ouster.

Lecornu told lawmakers on Wednesday he would propose in November an amendment to the social security financing law in order to suspend the reform.

By putting the pension reform on the chopping block, Lecornu threatens to kill off one of Macron’s main economic legacies at a time when France’s public finances are in a perilous state, leaving the president with little in the way of domestic achievements after eight years in office.

France is in the midst of its worst political crisis in decades as a succession of minority governments seek to push deficit-reducing budgets through a truculent legislature split into three distinct ideological blocs.

France’s Socialists on Wednesday set their sights on including a tax on billionaires in the 2026 budget as talks over its passage began in parliament.