Catherine Field: Paris Correspondent on French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu resigning after 27 days

France is farewelling its fifth Prime Minister in under two years as it enters a fresh political crisis. 

The country's new Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has resigned just hours after appointing his new cabinet. 

His ministerial line-up has been heavily criticised by parties in the National Assembly.   

Newstalk ZB's Paris correspondent Catherine Field told Mike Hosking Lecornu believed negotiations between other parties had stalled. 

She says he believed other parties just wanted to push their own programme on to the government, without making any compromises. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We must go immediately to Catherine Field, who's in France. Catherine,
very good morning to you. Good morning mine is So
are things going reasonably well at the moment, then are they?

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Mike, I stopped looking at the news about two minutes ago,
and I shuddered to think what I may have messed
those two minutes, because it has been the most extraordinary
twenty four hours. Even by French standards of political drama,
it's been extraordinary. So we had Sunday evening very late,

(00:32):
the caretaker prime minister announced his new cabinet. It's the
best in Licor news. Said he'd finally, after all the negotiations,
come up with the names and then blow me down.
The next morning, fourteen hours twenty six minutes later, he
announces his resignation. Says the government, which still hasn't met
for cabinet, is also going to resign because forteen hours

(00:55):
after announcing this cabinet he said that the negotiations that
have been going on had gotten nowhere. He said none
of the parties involved were able to make compromises. They
all just wanted to push their own program onto the government.
Then they wanted other parties to adopt to that so
governor's fallen. Lecornu had a record twenty seven days as

(01:20):
French Prime minister, shortest of a term. He has now
been asked to buy Emmanuel Macron, the president, to go
away for fourty eight hours to try and find a
responsible and stable solution to the crisis of having no government.
And once he finds that, then the president will put

(01:41):
in place a platform of action and stability. What that
means we don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
No, I was going to say, I didn't understand a
word you said. Just then, having said that had at
what point does it become Macron's problem. You can't just
keep picking people who resign.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
It is already Macron's problem. Let's just be honest ability here.
His first term went quite well. He's swept to power,
young new centrist president, and he was also swept to
power through parliamentary elections. His party got in, they got
a majority. They were able to put in place a
lot of those sort of centrist policies that he'd wanted,

(02:17):
some of the reforms, particularly to the budget. Second term
has not gone well. His party did not get a
clear majority. At the start of that he thought he
might win a new majority by having new elections mid
twenty twenty four that didn't come off. He's had three
prime ministers since mid twenty twenty four, so it is
his problem. He caused the problem by causing those elections

(02:40):
when he didn't need to. Problem is it's very difficult
to get rid of a French president and if they
die in office or they resigned. He said he's not
going to resign. He's staying where he is.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
OK.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
The other problem, of course that Mike is French politics is,
up until very recently, it was just two parties, so
it was sort of go from the social to the
Conservatives and backwards and force. They just do not have
a culture here of compromise of coalitions, and they're learning
that the hard way.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
That was my next question. How much of what these
parties refused to concede was based on the desire their
own individual desires to see somebody fall and pay a price.
In otherwords, you can say whatever you want, they're not
going to agree to anything.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Well, that's exactly it. On the one side, you had
what they're calling the center ground, which is what Macron
was hoping that he could get sort of the center
left and the center right together. But of course, the
center left, all they wanted to talk about was reforms
to the retirement policy, to pension reforms. When it came
to the Center rights, they said, well, you know, we

(03:43):
want more done on emigration, on migration, on laws regarding
non French people and France. The other ones were saying, well,
we're not going to do anything unless you bring in
a tax to tax are super rich. So there was
no compromise. But I mean some people say, you know, Mike,
that perhaps Sebastian Corner could have thought of that before

(04:04):
he announced the new cabinet.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Well, it's a pleasure. Katsine catchup so in cathern Field
and France.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
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