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President Donald Trump unveiled a new agreement with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca on October 10, aiming to reduce prescription drug costs in the...
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday reappointed Sébastien Lecornu as prime minister, just days after his resignation, hoping the loyal ally can secure enough backing in a fractured parliament to pass the 2026 budget.
By reinstating Lecornu, 47-year-old Macron risks inflaming tensions with political opponents who insist that the only way out of France’s most severe political crisis in decades is to either call snap parliamentary elections or step down.
Lecornu’s immediate challenge will be to present a new budget to parliament by Monday evening.
“I accept – out of duty – the mission entrusted to me by the President of the Republic: to do everything possible to provide France with a budget by year’s end and to address the everyday concerns of our fellow citizens,” Lecornu wrote on X.
“We must bring an end to this political crisis that frustrates the French people and to the instability that damages France’s image and interests.”
Discontent among the left
Earlier in the day, Macron gathered mainstream party leaders in an effort to rally support for his choice. Left-wing leaders reacted angrily to his decision not to appoint someone from their camp, signalling that the new government may prove as fragile as its predecessors.
Another government collapse could push Macron towards calling early elections — a move widely viewed as benefiting the far right.
“We’re not calling for the dissolution of parliament, but we’re not afraid of it either,” Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure told reporters after the meeting.
Political crisis weighs on economy
France’s political upheaval — which has hurt growth and unsettled financial markets — stems largely from Macron’s decision last year to hold legislative elections. The gamble resulted in a hung parliament split into three rival ideological blocs.
Efforts to repair public finances, requiring spending cuts or tax increases that no side can agree upon, have deepened the deadlock, while positioning by politicians eyeing the 2027 presidential race has further complicated matters.
If lawmakers fail to agree on a budget within the allotted time, the government may have to resort to emergency legislation to keep the country running on a temporary roll-over budget.
Macron excluded both Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) and the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) from his talks with party chiefs.
RN president Jordan Bardella accused Macron of prioritising his political survival over the public interest.
“The RN is proud not to have been invited. We are not for sale to Macron’s entourage,” Bardella wrote on X.
Race to finalise the budget
France’s central bank governor, François Villeroy de Galhau, warned on Friday that political uncertainty could shave 0.2 percentage points off GDP, noting that business sentiment had weakened even as the broader economy remained stable.
“Uncertainty is the number one enemy of growth,” he told RTL radio.
Prolonged wrangling over fiscal policy — as France tries to curb its deficit and stabilise public finances — has already cost Macron three prime ministers in less than a year.
At the heart of the dispute are left-wing calls to overturn Macron’s 2023 pension reforms, which raised the retirement age, and to increase taxes on the wealthy — proposals resisted by conservatives whose support is crucial for passing the budget.
During the meeting, Macron reportedly offered to postpone the full implementation of the retirement age hike to 2028, but Green Party leader Marine Tondelier said the concession was inadequate.
Villeroy urged that the deficit should not exceed 4.8% of GDP in 2026. It is projected to reach 5.4% this year, nearly double the European Union’s ceiling.
Macron’s previous prime minister, François Bayrou, was ousted by parliament after proposing €44 billion in spending cuts to bring the deficit down to 4.6% of GDP.
Video from the USGS (United States Geological Survey) showed on Friday (19 September) the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii erupting and spewing lava.
At least eight people have died and more than 90 others were injured following a catastrophic gas tanker explosion on a major highway in Mexico City’s Iztapalapa district on Wednesday, authorities confirmed.
At least 69 people have died and almost 150 injured following a powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Cebu City in the central Visayas region of the Philippines, officials said, making it one of the country’s deadliest disasters this year.
Authorities in California have identified the dismembered body discovered in a Tesla registered to singer D4vd as 15-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who had been missing from Lake Elsinore since April 2024.
A powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on 13 September with no tsunami threat, coming just weeks after the region endured a devastating 8.8-magnitude quake — the strongest since 1952.
Haiti's food insecurity is projected to worsen by mid-2026, with nearly 6 million people facing critical hunger levels. Gang violence and economic collapse have displaced families, disrupted agriculture, and eroded livelihoods, leaving over half the population reliant on aid.
Developing nations are entering a new and worrying phase in their relationship with China. A new report from Boston University finds that, in 2022 and 2023, these countries paid more in debt service to China than they received in new Chinese loans.
President Donald Trump announced on Friday that hostages held by Hamas in Gaza are expected to be released on Monday.
President Donald Trump unveiled a new agreement with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca on October 10, aiming to reduce prescription drug costs in the United States.
A tsunami threat was issued in Chile after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck the Drake Passage on Friday. The epicenter was located 135 miles south of Puerto Williams on the north coast of Navarino Island.
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