French Prime Minister Resigns in Shocking Move

France’s embattled prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, resigned on Monday less than 24 hours after forming a cabinet, catching the nation by surprise and making his government the shortest-lived in modern French history.

President Emmanuel Macron’s office said in a statement that he had accepted the resignation of Mr. Lecornu and of his ministers, which came amid turmoil over the composition of his cabinet, an uneasy coalition of centrists and conservatives.

The resignation immediately ratcheted up pressure from opposition parties on the left and the far right for Mr. Macron to call snap parliamentary elections or even resign — options that the president has so far ruled out. Other forces, like the Socialist Party, argued that it was time for a left-wing prime minister to govern.

Mr. Lecornu, a close ally of the French president, was appointed less than a month ago. He is the third prime minister to leave office in under a year, a level of turmoil that until recently was rare in France.

Mr. Macron’s office said later on Monday that he had asked Mr. Lecornu, who remains in a caretaker capacity, to hold last-ditch talks with political forces “to define a platform for action and stability for the country” by Wednesday evening.

Mr. Lecornu said on social media that he had agreed to do so but provided no details, saying only that Mr. Macron would “draw all the necessary conclusions” depending on the result of the talks.

Markets were rattled by the resignation, which will jeopardize France’s ability to get a budget passed by the end of the year to tackle surging debt and deficit.

Since snap elections called by Mr. Macron in 2024, France’s lower house of Parliament has been deadlocked among a collection of left-wing parties; a tenuous center-right coalition; and a nationalist, anti-immigration far right. No party has a working majority.

Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally party, said that only new parliamentary elections could break the political impasse.

“The farce has lasted long enough,” she told reporters after Mr. Lecornu’s resignation.

Mr. Lecornu, who was supposed to present a budget on Tuesday, faced a difficult balancing act. He needed to shore up a shaky alliance with conservatives while also appeasing the moderate Socialist Party, whose demands, like a wealth tax and a suspension of the newly raised legal retirement age, run counter to the pro-business agenda that Mr. Macron wants to preserve.

In a televised address on Monday, Mr. Lecornu said he had tried to build the conditions for a budget deal and to “respond to a handful of emergencies that cannot wait for 2027,” when France’s next presidential elections are scheduled.

Mr. Lecornu had announced last week that he would not use a constitutional prerogative to push a spending bill through Parliament without a full vote, which his predecessors had often done to force lawmakers to pass a budget. Promising that lawmakers would have their say was a risky gamble aimed at staving off the threat of being toppled before budget discussions had even begun.

But on Monday, Mr. Lecornu accused France’s parties of failing to seize the opportunity. He blamed “partisan appetites,” suggesting that many politicians were more interested in preparing for upcoming elections, and he argued that the lack of cross-party negotiations in French politics had set him up for failure.

“Political parties are continuing to act as though they all have an absolute majority in the National Assembly,” Mr. Lecornu said, referring to France’s lower house. “I was ready to compromise, but each political party wants the other to adopt its whole platform.”

For opposition parties, however, the fault lies with Mr. Macron for refusing to appoint a prime minister who might oppose him, even though his centrist alliance lost badly in the snap elections. Mr. Lecornu’s two predecessors and their cabinets had also been part of the conservative-centrist coalition.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, longtime leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, said on Monday that Mr. Macron “did not want to accept the results of the early parliamentary elections he had called.

“Since then, the republic and democracy have been distorted,” added Mr. Mélenchon, whose party has been urging Mr. Macron to resign for months.

While supporters had praised Mr. Lecornu as an expert negotiator who could find a path to a budget, the immediate trigger for the resignation appears to have been sudden anger from conservatives within his coalition.

The Republicans, France’s mainstream conservative party, were particularly outraged over the appointment of Bruno Le Maire, who was economy and finance minister from 2017 to 2024, as defense minister. A veteran centrist, Mr. Le Maire is blamed by Mr. Macron’s opponents for letting the deficit soar on his watch.

Bruno Retailleau, the interior minister and leader of the Republicans, told the TF1 channel on Monday that Mr. Le Maire’s appointment, which he said Mr. Lecornu had hidden from him, had reflected a “disconnect” between the government and ordinary people.

“We need a budget, we need stability,” he said. “But I can’t commit to a government where I am not told everything.”

Ségolène Le Stradic and Liz Alderman contributed reporting.