Sébastien Lecornu at the Paris Air Show, held at Le Bourget airport in Paris's northern suburbs, on June 17, 2025. BERTRAND GUAY/AFP
Sébastien Lecornu's appointment as prime minister was, in the end, only delayed by nine months. The defense minister was to be appointed on December 13, 2024, before François Bayrou threatened to "break everything" and sidelined him. After the centrist Bayrou was ousted by the Assemblée Nationale on September 8, President Emmanuel Macron finally had a clear path to install the most discreet and loyal of his ministers as head of government. Lecornu is also the longest-serving: At 39, he is the most senior member of Macron's successive cabinets, having served as a minister continuously for more than eight years.
Yet most French people do not know him. Born in Normandy, the only child of an aeronautical technician and a medical secretary, he began his political activism at 16 with the right-wing UMP party, the predecessor of Les Républicains (LR). At 22, he became a parliamentary aide to Bruno Le Maire, then an MP with UMP. At 28, he was elected mayor of Vernon, Normandy, and the following year, became the youngest president of the council of his department, Eure.
