Sébastien Lecornu (third from the right) during a meeting with the new members of his government at Matignon [the prime minister's office] in Paris, October 13, 2025. ALAIN JOCARD/AFP
From the outset, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced that, after an initial failed attempt, the ministers in his new team would be "a government with a mission": "to give France a budget before the end of the year." The extraordinarily tight budget schedule prompted the Elysée Palace and the prime minister's office to announce the government's composition on Sunday evening, October 12, so that the draft budget could be approved by the Council of Ministers on Tuesday, and then immediately submitted to Parliament. Will the mission be accomplished? And what will the result be? Here is an overview in six questions, each a political test in itself.
A budget or not?
This is the issue at stake in the coming days. It is the first real test for the government. For President Emmanuel Macron and Lecornu, it is essential that France start 2026 with a proper budget. The content of it seems almost secondary.
After a technical hiccup in 1980, the very question of whether there would be a budget had not arisen for 45 years. But at the end of 2024, the political crisis blocked an initial budget vote and forced the adoption of a minimalist "special law" temporarily renewing the previous year's spending.
