France: Socialist Party saves Lecornu!

Last week, Sébastien Lecornu resigned as Prime Minister after an unprecedentedly brief stint in power. Just days later, he was reappointed by Macron and tasked with cobbling together a cabinet that could pass his austerity budget.

Immediately on re-taking office, he was presented with motions of no confidence from La France Insoumise (LFI) on the left, and Rassemblement National (RN) on the right. Today, his government survived the no confidence vote by 18 MPs, saved by the MPs of the ‘centre-left’ Socialist Party (PS). We publish here the analysis of the Parti Communiste Révolutionnaire – the French section of the RCI.

[Originally published in French at marxiste.org]

Today, socialist MPs were the only members of the official ‘opposition’ to reject the motion of no confidence, abstaining in the vote. All it took for them to decide to support the Lecornu government was for him to commit to suspending the implementation of the 2023 pension reform.

The rest of the government's budget includes tens of billions of euros in cuts and tax increases affecting the general population. For example, the ‘blank year’ [a freeze on all social benefits, including pensions, which would not be adjusted for inflation] advocated by Bayrou has been retained. It is a totally reactionary budget. Nevertheless, Olivier Faure and Boris Vallaud are proclaiming ‘victory!’. Marylise Léon – general secretary of the CFDT trade union federation – also proclaims ‘victory!’. This is a good illustration of the role of these reformist leaders today: they no longer aim for reforms; they negotiate marginal concessions over the speed and intensity of the attacks.

To cover up their capitulation, the Socialist Party (PS) leaders claim that by renouncing the use of article 49.3 of the constitution (which allows the government to pass laws without a vote in parliament), Lecornu has opened up the possibility of MPs giving the budget a progressive content through amendments. In reality, this is absolutely out of the question. With or without article 49.3, the government has many means at its disposal to impose an austerity budget. Only marginal ‘concessions’ will (perhaps) be on the agenda. And it is not impossible that the PS MPs will once again be satisfied with this.

The leaders of La France Insoumise (LFI) – the main party of the Left – called on the PS MPs to vote for censure… in vain. ‘Betrayal!’ exclaimed the leaders of Mélenchon's movement. Yes, indeed: betrayal. But for the information of Mélenchon and his comrades, the PS leaders have been systematically betraying the masses of the exploited and oppressed for several decades. Whether in power or in ‘opposition’, the ‘socialist’ leaders have only one directive: the defence of the fundamental interests of the French bourgeoisie. Young people and workers have become so aware of this over time that Anne Hidalgo – PS member and Mayor of Paris – won 1.7 percent of the vote in the April 2022 presidential election, after their previous candidate Benoît Hamon won 6.4 percent in April 2017.

By crying ‘betrayal’, the leaders of La France Insoumise are kicking down doors that have been open for a very long time. Above all, they avoid asking themselves what responsibility they bear for the current situation. In fact, it was the LFI leadership itself that saved the Socialist Party from disaster in June 2022, by including them in their ‘NUPES’ electoral front, and then in July 2024 in the ‘New Popular Front’. In doing this, LFI gave PS the opportunity to support Bayrou in January 2025 – and now Lecornu.

Many LFI activists and supporters are now fully aware of this. They are calling on Mélenchon and his comrades to break completely with the PS, but also with the Communist Party (PCF) and the Greens, who on all burning political issues – including the genocide in Gaza – have attacked the LFI from the right and, have found a thousand excuses for PS' betrayals. This demand, which is coming from the supporters and the rank and file of LFI, is absolutely correct.

It is urgent that the leaders of LFI break with the right wing of reformism (PS, Greens, PCF) on the basis of a radical programme and a strategy of large extra-parliamentary mobilisations. Failing this, it is Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) that will benefit, as it will capture a large part of the exasperation of the exploited and oppressed. Failure to understand this, means missing the fundamental political process that is unfolding. There is immense anger in society and growing political polarisation, with an ever clearer rejection of the ‘centrist’ parties – including PS and its two ‘left-wing’ counterparts, the Greens and the PCF. In other words, any attempt to reconstitute the ‘New Popular Front’, in whatever form, would be a huge gift to RN.

The Lecornu government remains extremely fragile. It is not impossible that it will collapse in the coming weeks under the weight of the internal contradictions undermining PS and the traditional ‘centre-right’ party, Les Républicains. But let us not forget that it was the prospect of the 10 September movement that brought down the Bayrou government.

The surest way to bring down Lecornu and, above all, to open up the prospect of a break with all austerity policies, is to build a powerful mass movement, in the streets and in the workplaces, to ‘block everything’.

The mobilisations of 10 and 18 September showed that there are enormous reserves of militancy among young people and workers. This remains the central element of the current political situation, which is also marked internationally by a wave of revolutions and explosive mobilisations in a whole series of countries.

Therefore, the most militant activists in the labour movement – beginning with those in LFI and the CGT trade union confederation – must develop a serious battle plan, based on a militant programme and a broad agitational campaign. The aim must be to put an end to the government of the rich and replace it with a government of the workers, who will be able to reorganise the economy for the benefit of the majority.