A protester brandishes a smoke flame by a barricade on fire during a demonstration part of the “Bloquons tout” (“Let’s block everything”) protest movement, in the south east of Paris, on September 10, 2025. The broad anti-government campaign, dubbed “Bloquons tout” (“Let’s block everything”), calls for a ahutdown of France on September 10 with a string of protest actions and civil disobedience around the country.
Alain Jocard | Afp | Getty Images
There’ll be no honeymoon period for France’s newly named Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, with financial markets and the public showing increasing restlessness over France’s political and fiscal impasse.
Lecornu, who was only appointed as France’s new prime minister on Tuesday after the unceremonious ousting of PM Francois Bayrou at the start of the week, faces an immediate challenge as a mass public protest is unfolding Wednesday.
The grassroots “Let’s Block Everything” movement has called on disgruntled voters to show their dissatisfaction over the messy state of French affairs with acts of civil disobedience, urging protestors to blockade transport networks, public buildings and other services.
Paris police said Wednesday morning that 75 people have already been arrested, according to a France 24 report. Images have emerged of disorder erupting in the capital.
This image grabbed from a video shows a protester jumping onto a police car (R) as clashes erupt outside the Helene Boucher high school, as part the “Bloquons tout” (“Let’s block everything”) protest movement, in Paris, on September 10, 2025.
Guillaume Bonnet | Afp | Getty Images
Lecornu’s baptism of fire comes just hours after Bayrou handed in his resignation to French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday. Bayrou’s downfall came after losing a confidence vote in the National Assembly on Monday evening, as a result of failing to win support for proposed spending cuts and tax rises in the national 2026 budget.
Lecornu, a longtime Macron ally and defense minister, is now France’s fifth prime minister in less than two years. The formal handover of power between Bayrou and Lecornu is due to take place on Wednesday at midday local time.
There’s no doubt that Lecornu is inheriting something of a poisoned chalice. He has been put in charge of a fragile minority government prone to challenges, demands and upheaval from parties on both the far left and right — as the ousting of Bayrou and his predecessor, Michel Barnier, less than a year ago, has proven.
Lecornu will now have to steer a budget through France’s completely fractured parliament, macro strategists at Deutsche Bank flagged Wednesday.
French Armies Minister Sebastien Lecornu leaves the Elysee palace at the end of the weekly cabinet meeting in Paris on November 8, 2023.
Ludovic Marin | Afp | Getty Images
“There were no signs last night that this task will become easier, with the far-right and far-left maintaining calls for snap elections while the centre-left Socialists said that Macron ‘persists in a path in which no socialist will participate’,” they bank’s analysts said in a note.
Lecornu also faces an uphill battle as he tries to balance the competing expectations of financial markets and the public.
While the former demands fiscal consolidation from France’s leadership, the latter is opposed to spending cuts and reforms — such as raising the retirement age and reforming the pension system — that economists see as necessary to balance the books.
Doing so is vital, as France’s budget deficit now stands at 5.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024, while its debt pile amounted to 113% of GDP in 2024. Both levels are far above EU rules demanding that individual members’ deficits should not exceed 3% of GDP, while their public debt should not surpass 60% of economic output.
Financial markets are on edge over France’s long-term trajectory, although investors cheered the quick installation of a new PM, with France’s CAC 40 index 0.6% higher in early deals Wednesday morning. The yield on France’s 10-year government bond was meanwhile 2 basis points lower, at 3.4728%.
Investors will be looking ahead to Friday, however, when Fitch ratings agency is expected to publish its review of France’s credit rating, which currently stands at AA-.
“A tough job awaits the new premier, gathering support for the 2026 budget, which includes significant spending cuts in its current draft.,” Kristoffer Kjær Lomholt, director of FX and rates strategy at Danske Bank, noted Wednesday.
“The impending process may take some immediate pressure of French government bonds as markets await the outcome of the negotiations. With France up for review on Friday by Fitch, the risk of a downgrade to A+ from AA- may have decreased with the possibility of Fitch awaiting the new budget proposal,” he said in an emailed note.
