Sébastien Lecornu, France's 'politicking' new prime minister and Macron's last hope
Sébastien Lecornu, 39, was on Monday appointed by Emmanuel Macron as France’s new prime minister, tasked with pushing the president’s policy programme through France’s hung parliament – there where his predecessors failed and where his reputation as an expert in the art of political manoeuvring will face its sternest test yet. However, Lecornu, whose ideological convictions are unclear, and who is cited in a judicial investigation into favouritism, also has a mixed record of success as minister. Mediapart political correspondent Ilyes Ramdani dresses a portrait of he who is widely regarded as Macron’s last chance for avoiding fresh legislative elections, and the risk of the far-right obtaining a majority.
InIn his 2009 book Le Pouvoir ne se partage pas (“Power is not for sharing”), Édouard Balladur, the former French conservative prime minister (1993-1995), now aged 96, wrote harshly about some of his former contemporary political personalities. One, although he did not name him, was fellow Gaullist Jacques Chirac, who defeated him in their fratricidal battle for the presidency in 1995. “The true goal of politics is power, that alone,” wrote Balladur. “Among [those who are] the ordinary ambitious, everything is subordinated to that end, their forces given over to winning it, and to keep it, sometimes not knowing what to do with it. It is a preoccupation that is greater than any other.”
