Is Prime Minister Lecornu Marcon’s direct successor?

Paris. When asked what comes to mind when he reads the number 27, Sébastien Lecornu replies with an ambiguous smile: “The Eure”, the department where he served as mayor and president of the Departmental Council, whose administrative code consists of those two digits which, in France today, immediately bring to mind next year’s presidential election – when Emmanuel Macron will no longer be able to stand due to term limits. But despite the cryptic answers, it is now an open secret within Macron’s inner circle: the current French Prime Minister has set his sights on the Élysée. “He wants to take on the responsibility of being the designated heir; he fully claims to be the President’s heir apparent,” a MP from Renaissance, the pro-Macron party, told Public Sénat. “Some of his ministers say openly that he has been thinking about it ever since he stepped through the doors of Matignon,” the MP added. In a political landscape where no centrist candidate seems to be winning over the French public – neither Édouard Philippe, leader of Horizons, nor Gabriel Attal, secretary-general of Renaissance – and where the prospect of a second round between the extremists Mélenchon and Le Pen is no longer political fiction, Lecornu represents the reassuring third way that could win everyone over, starting with President Emmanuel Macron, who has long regarded him as one of his most loyal supporters. “He is a soldier-monk. He has demonstrated his ability to unite people, to get the various political factions within the majority – and beyond – to work together,” a centrist senator told Public Sénat, praising the qualities of Lecornu, the man who last year managed to secure a budget for France when the appointment of a commissioner seemed all but inevitable.

Lecornu is the French government’s ‘force tranquille’, as some put it, echoing Mitterrand’s famous slogan – the man of conciliation and balance, who smooths things over where his colleagues seek to heighten tensions. ‘At the same time, in 2016, Emmanuel Macron had only just founded his party, En Marche!, and was still in government. Discussions on his programme had not even begun. The reality is that many things can happen,” said MP Marc Ferracci, a long-standing Macron supporter, on French Senate TV. But what is Lecornu’s profile? “He is someone with years of experience behind him, politically astute and endowed with a true political instinct,” Ferracci assures us.

At a time when rumours of his bid for the Élysée are growing ever more persistent, Lecornu gave his first interview in ten months to Paris Match on Wednesday. When the weekly asked him whether he identified with any of the centrist candidates, he replied: “It is mid-July. What is certain is that the President of the Republic’s term of office will end in May 2027. (…). We need to offer prospects for the future: that is the role of the presidential elections. The candidates are gradually developing their ideas, but despite this, the French people do not yet see a concrete vision taking shape.” For the next budget, Lecornu promises “structural reforms – albeit modest ones – that will produce lasting effects”, and calls for “presidential compromises, that is to say compromises at national level”, because “the next President of the Republic will inherit the same French people, the same local authorities, the same trade unions, the same businesses, the same problems, and perhaps even a Parliament that will closely resemble today’s”, said Lecornu: “We must therefore stop viewing every compromise as a betrayal”. The French Prime Minister is not writing a book about his time at Matignon following his years in various ministries (Ecology, Local Authorities, Overseas Territories and Defence), because it is “strange to want to be the narrator of one’s own story whilst it is still being written”, he told the weekly magazine: a way of saying that the best is yet to come, that the next chapter will be the most compelling.

An Odoxa poll for Le Figaro revealed last week that Lecornu is the favourite among Macron’s supporters to represent the centre in the presidential elections. In 2027, according to several observers, Macron is hoping for someone to keep the seat warm for him ahead of his return in 2032. And Lecornu seems to be the perfect fit.