FRANCE’S Prime Minister Sébastian Lecornu was summoned back to the Élysée presidential palace in Paris on Monday afternoon just hours after his shock resignation plunged the country deeper into political chaos.
The centrist PM quit less than 24 hours after naming a new cabinet, having lost the support of conservatives in a deeply fragmented legislature.
In his resignation speech he stated that one should ‘always choose one’s country to one’s party’, indirectly attacking interior minister Bruno Retailleau and the Republican party without naming them specifically.
Lecornu and his government resigned on Monday, hours after he announced his cabinet line-up, making it the shortest-lived in modern French history, driving stocks and the euro sharply down.
Lecornu blamed political parties’ intransigence for his resignation during a public address on Monday morning in the courtyard of the Matignon Palace, the French PM’s headquarters, just an hour after announcing he would no longer head the government.
‘I was ready to compromise, but each political party wanted the other political party to adopt its entire programme,’ he said.
Senior Socialist Party official Pierre Jouvet has called on President Emmanuel Macron to appoint a new prime minister from the left and the Greens bloc.
Jouvet, the Socialist Party’s secretary general, clarified that his party was not calling for the president’s resignation, and that his party representatives would be meeting with their left-wing partners ‘in the coming hours,’ without, however, mentioning the far-left France Unbowed party.
Relations between the Socialists and France Unbowed have been strained over the past year as the leftist New Popular Front (NFP) coalition has struggled to hold a common opposition strategy amid clashing messages and messy public disagreements.
A meeting of left parties proposed by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, head of France Unbowed, following Lecornu’s shock resignation ‘will not take place,’ said Greens leader Marine Tondelier.
Outgoing French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said on Monday that if the French political situation remains blocked, new elections will be necessary, as he urged President Emmanuel Macron to speak soon.
‘If there is a deadlock, then we will have to return to the voting booth. But I think there are other ways before it comes to that. It’s just that those ways are not mine to decide,’ Retailleau, who heads the right-wing Les Republicains (LR) party, told TF1 television.
Macron can appoint a new prime minister, dissolve the National Assembly, or announce his resignation.
Shares in French banks fell sharply on Monday with shares in European banking giant BNP Paribas down 4.5% in midday trading, Societe Generale shed almost 6% and Credit Agricole lost more than 4%.
On the far left, France Unbowed also asked for Macron’s departure, while voices on the left called for the revival of a coalition made up of leftists, socialists, greens and communists.
Before Lecornu’s shock resignation, trade union federation the CGT (General Confederation of Labour) had announced that it would ‘be on the streets on October 9th for a day of action on health and social protection, including a demonstration in Paris called by health and social action professionals, with the participation of employees from the social security and pharmaceutical sectors.’
A CGT statement had said: ‘The inter-union will meet the day after the general policy speech to analyse the Prime Minister’s announcements and make the necessary decisions for the future.
‘After three days of intense protests, more than two million people took to the streets to demand wage increases, the defence of our public services, and fair and effective taxation, contrary to the budget envisaged by Prime Minister Lecornu.’
On October 2nd, nearly 600,000 protesters took to the streets in 250 demonstrations across the country, called by the inter-union.
The CGT reported significant strikes in several sectors, including chemicals, social welfare organisations, the local public service, and education.
Work stoppages took place in automotive and food processing companies. The Bar-sur-Aube metalworking plant was shut down last Thursday.
Glassworkers in Vergèze also stepped up their strike and in the energy sector, employees who have been taking action for a month over wage increases and a reduction in VAT, have stepped up their work stoppages.
The CGT said: ‘This social unrest also reflects an expression of anger at Emmanuel Macron’s “supply-side policy,” which amounts to the enrichment of the richest and the stagnation or even impoverishment of the incomes of the majority.
‘A supply-side policy that impoverishes our public services, cuts the resources of our local authorities, puts pressure on the social housing sector, and destroys our social rights… to serve capital.
‘Under Macron, the 500 richest people have doubled their fortunes!
‘The CGT continues to demand a different budget for the country and is demanding the abandonment of the entire budget project.
‘The CGT is determined to maintain and expand the mobilisation, in the face of a weakened government that has decided to continue listening to the financial markets and remaining deaf to the expectations of the country’s workers.
Education in the fight in Seine-Saint-Denis!
‘Overcrowded or closed classes, underpaid staff, a lack of AESH (Health and Social Assistance)… After the mobilisation two years ago for an emergency plan for the 93 department, our demands are still relevant.
‘The emergency plan calls for 358 million for the 93. This is little compared to the 211 billion in gifts to businesses! We need resources for our public services!’
Eight years of sacrifice is enough
Macron’s policy also involves the deindustrialisation of the country, the inflation of aid to businesses without control or compensation (+211 billion euros according to a Senate report), and the abandonment of public policies to initiate the ecological transition.
‘Eight years of sacrifices is enough,’ declared CGT leader Sophie Binet.
French workers and youth also took to the streets in their tens of thousands last Saturday, October 4th, in response to a call from the National Collective for a Just and Lasting Peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
It said: ‘We welcome the initiatives of the trade unions that have blocked the shipment of military equipment to Israel and call for their extension.
‘We give our full support to the flotillas to Gaza and call on states to protect them.
‘We call on the entire population to mobilise en masse to demand:
- The immediate cessation of bombing and the withdrawal of Israeli ground troops from the Gaza Strip, and the release of all detainees, as part of an immediate and lasting ceasefire;
- The immediate reopening of all crossing points, and the massive resumption of humanitarian aid to Gaza under the control of the UN and international NGOs, and access to Gaza for international medical workers and journalists;
- The cessation by France of all military cooperation and all delivery of arms, munitions and military equipment to Israel, and the prohibition of their transit through its territory;
- The immediate resumption of operations to allow Palestinians to leave Gaza, particularly students, academics and artists, and their reception in France;
- That France initiate sanctions against Israel , on the diplomatic level and by calling into question commercial, academic and research cooperation with Israel;
- France’s implementation of International Criminal Court (ICC) warrants and the opening of investigations into Franco-Israelis who may have committed war crimes;
• The suspension of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Israel.
