After Sébastien Lecornu resigned as French Prime Minister earlier this month following heated disputes over the next national budget, President Emmanuel Macron reappointed him to the same post.

The decision was announced after a round of consultations with party leaders from most political groups – except France Unbowed (La France Insoumise) and the far-right National Rally (Rassemblement National) – on Friday. Following the discussion, progressive representatives noted Macron remained unyielding in seeing more neoliberal reforms through.

“We got no answers on anything except pensions,” Green leader Marine Tondelier reflected on the recent talks with the president’s camp. “And the response from the Macronists on that shows that they neither want to repeal the 2023 reform nor truly suspend it. And these people dare to tell us we’re the ones unwilling to compromise?”

Left and progressive parties have consistently called for the repeal of the pension reform, which raises the retirement age to 64. Their demands have been repeatedly dismissed or sidestepped, with critics now describing promises of further dialogue as a distraction from other austerity measures planned by Macron’s prime minister – regardless of who fills the post – to reduce public debt. These include cuts to healthcare, unemployment protections, and climate justice policies, but not, for example, taxing the rich.

Read more: ‘Emmanuel Macron wants to shift the burden of the crisis on the working class’

This is the fourth time in a year that Macron was forced to appoint a new prime minister, after his decision to call a snap election to counter the far right’s gains in the European Parliament in 2024 backfired. While the progressive coalition New Popular Front (Nouveau Front Populaire) emerged as the relative winner of that vote, Macron has refused to appoint a left-leaning premier. Instead, he continues to select allies who lack both parliamentary and public legitimacy.

As a result, the president’s popularity has more or less hit rock bottom. According to recent polls, only 14% of the French public still supports him. Anger has grown in response to his reaction to the genocide in Gaza and kidnapping of French nationals from the Freedom Flotilla and similar initiatives, his failure to listen demands articulated during workers’ and grassroots mobilizations in September, and his dedication to the neoliberal agenda. As France Unbowed summarized: “The president walks alone, disconnected and hated by his people.”

Read more: “Let’s Block Everything” protests challenge Macron’s austerity

The left has been calling for Macron’s dismissal ever since he refused to acknowledge the outcome of the 2024 elections. This campaign has expanded to include repeated censure and no-confidence motions against the succession of prime ministers he has appointed. Progressive parties argue that the main source of instability in France today is Macron himself: a president determined to shift the cost of his failed model onto workers and the wider population while protecting the wealthy.

Judging from reports of parties who took part in consultations ahead of Lecornu’s reappointment, it seems Macron’s intention is to continue with business as usual under the new administration. But Lecornu’s second government may last even less than the last one: left and progressive parliamentarians have already submitted a censure motion in the National Assembly, expected to be debated shortly after his new address to parliament.

“Since 2017, the wealth of the 500 richest individuals has doubled, while 1.2 million more people have fallen below the poverty line – an all-time high in 30 years,” reads the motion submitted by Mathilde Panot of France Unbowed. “Today, the president wants the people to pay for his disaster through massive cuts to public spending […] The pitiful spectacle of consultations at Matignon [the PM’s headquarters] and the Élysée [the presidency’s headquarters] confirmed only one thing: Sébastien Lecornu intends to govern with the same people, for the same people – in other words, against the people.”

The motion adds: “The president himself has become the source of political instability. The resignation or removal of Emmanuel Macron is the only way to offer a democratic way out of the current chaos.”

The post After Lecornu comes Lecornu: Macron reappoints ally as prime minister appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

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