The Movement’s Challenge to a Fragile and Hobbled Government | EUROtoday

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Lhe Prime Minister “weakest of the Ve Republic » is still in Matignon. Five months after uttering these words to summarize the precariousness of his status, Sébastien Lecornu has passed the budget test and can look forward to the future. Saturday February 7, the fifth head of government of Emmanuel Macron’s second term gave an interview to several regional dailies. He reveals his roadmap for the year 2026.

New act of decentralization, presentation of the military programming law to the National Assembly in April with an increase in the budget of 6.7 billion euros, publication by decree of the multi-annual energy programming at the end of the week… Without a majority, without any budgetary margin and always threatened by political strategies, Mr. Lecornu wants to show that he can bring certain issues to life. He’s right. Faced with instability and tensions in the world, France cannot afford to remain frozen, as was the case during discussions on the finance bill. But the challenge is immense for this fragile government, hampered on all sides.

To move the country forward, it will be necessary to build a wall between Matignon’s action and the presidential election of 2027. A challenge. Even if Matignon promised to “disconnect” the federal government of everybody’s ambitions, the final word deadline dangers persevering with to intrude in all places. While Mr. Lecornu will perform a reshuffle between now and February 22, he has not deliberate to sideline his justice minister, Gérald Darmanin, who desires of a presidential future whereas being on the crossroads of all discussions inside the central bloc.

Hemicycles reworked into arenas

The Assembly and the Senate have additionally develop into showcases the place many candidates for candidacy exhibit themselves. Some lead teams there – Gabriel Attal, president of the Ensemble pour la République group; Marine Le Pen, president of the National Rally group; Laurent Wauquiez, chief of the Les Républicains (LR) deputies, whereas the president of LR, Bruno Retailleau, sits within the Senate… Three others, the founding father of La France insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the president of Horizons, Edouard Philippe, and the nationwide secretary of the Ecologists, Marine Tondelier, have shut hyperlinks with their deputies accountable for placing their concepts on stage. It shall be tough to convey essential texts in these hemicycles reworked into arenas the place postures rely greater than substance.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu at the National Assembly in Paris on January 23, 2026.

Without the assistance of those political forces, the Prime Minister may have no approach of stopping this machine. Hence his concept of ​​shifting ahead on extra consensual topics reminiscent of decentralization and protection or of passing via decrees. But the federal government may even must take dangers and resist populist pressures that are certain to disrupt parliamentary debates on the tip of life or across the agricultural emergency regulation already recognized by opponents of ecology.

Read additionally | Article reserved for our subscribers Sébastien Lecornu guarantees new tasks after turning the web page on the price range

Final problem for the pinnacle of presidency: making an attempt to regularly break free from a President of the Republic who needs to be at work “until the last quarter of an hour”. An indication of the instances, Saturday February 7, on the finish of every week during which he reappeared on the French political scene, the pinnacle of state needed to publish an extended message to attempt to defuse the controversy he had created two days earlier by elevating the potential of banning sure video video games that have been too violent. Dispossessed of a big a part of his energy for the reason that dissolution of the failed National Assembly in June 2024, Emmanuel Macron should confine himself to worldwide affairs in order to not confuse the messages of his authorities.

The World

https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2026/02/09/le-defi-du-mouvement-pour-un-gouvernement-fragile-et-entrave_6665978_3232.html