people|Brief encounter

Sébastien Lecornu

Sébastien Lecornu is the prime minister of France, appointed by Emmanuel Macron on September 9th 2025—Mr Macron's fifth prime minister since 2022. He took office on September 10th.

Background: Aged 39 at the time of his appointment. The son of an aerospace technician and a medical secretary from rural Normandy. Not a technocrat, nor educated at one of France's elite institutions. A former Republican, described as a "Gaullist"—a believer in a strong and independent state. A reservist in the gendarmerie.

Political career: Mr Lecornu has served in every one of Mr Macron's governments since 2017, most recently as defence minister, where he was respected for protecting the military budget. He is a close ally of the president and talks to those whose views he does not share, including the Socialists and Marine Le Pen of the hard-right National Rally.

As prime minister: He succeeded François Bayrou, whose minority government was toppled by parliament on September 8th 2025 over a deficit-cutting budget—the second government to fall in nine months. He called himself "the weakest prime minister under the Fifth Republic."

Less than four weeks into office, Mr Lecornu unveiled a new centrist government that looked like the old one, provoking opposition fury. He resigned before he was pushed, becoming the shortest-serving prime minister under the Fifth Republic—the fourth Mr Macron lost in just over a year. Mr Macron asked him to stay on in a caretaker role. After talks with leaders from the Socialists, Greens, Communists, centrist parties and centre-right Republicans—Marine Le Pen's hard right and Jean-Luc Mélenchon's hard left refused to take part—Mr Lecornu stayed on, forming a new minority government reliant on the 69 Socialists in the 577-seat lower house. Roland Lescure, a former financier, became his finance minister. The government suspended Macron's 2023 pension reform—which had raised the retirement age from 62 to 64—as the price of Socialist support.