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French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu resigns after less than a month
France’s Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has resigned, less than a day after his cabinet was unveiled.
“The conditions were not fulfilled for me to carry on as prime minister,” Lecornu said on Monday morning, and criticised the unwillingness by political parties to reach compromises.
The Elysée palace made the announcement after Lecornu met President Emmanuel Macron for an hour on Monday morning.
The shock move comes only 26 days after Lecornu was appointed prime minister following the collapse of the previous government of François Bayrou.
Parties across the board in the National Assembly had fiercely criticised the composition of Lecornu’s cabinet, which was largely unchanged from Bayrou’s, and threatened to vote it down.
Several parties are clamouring for early elections and some are calling for Macron to go – although he has always said he will not stand down before his term ends in 2027.
“The only wise thing to do now is to hold elections,” said Marine Le Pen of the hard-right National Rally (RN).
“The joke’s gone on long enough. French people are fed up. Macron has put the country in an extremely difficult position,” she added.
The decision on how to proceed now rests with Macron, who must surely be asking himself how long this political charade can be allowed to go on.
He has three options. He can appoint another prime minister. He can once again dissolve the National Assembly. Or he can resign himself.
The last is the least likely, while the first would be his natural choice.
However, who now could he name to form a government? Lecornu – the ultimate Macron loyalist – was seen as his last resort, but now he too has failed.
He could appoint a Socialist, on the basis that the left deserves a go at government – but a Socialist administration would itself not take long to fall.
So the logic must surely be for option two: for new legislative elections.
The result would probably be a rout for the pro-Macron centre, and a big victory for the hard-right of Marine Le Pen. But when every other recourse fails, few avenues remain.
Various French media reported that Macron was not expected to make a statement on Monday, leaving questions swirling over what his next move to break the impasse will be.
Lecornu, a former armed forces minister, was France’s fifth prime minister in under two years.
In his brief speech outside the Hôtel de Matignon, the prime minister’s residence, which he only occupied for less than a month, Lecornu sharply criticised the “partisan appetites” of political factions, who he said “are all behaving as if they had an absolute majority”.
“I was ready for compromise but all parties wanted the other party to adopt their programmes in their entirety,” he said.
“It wouldn’t need much for this to work,” he added, saying, however, that parties needed to be more humble and “to cast some egos aside”.
French politics has been highly unstable since July 2024, when Macron called for snap parliamentary elections in a bid to achieve a clear majority following a bruising loss for his party in the European Parliament vote.
Instead the elections resulted in a hung parliament divided into ideologically opposed factions deeply at odds with one another and unwilling to work together.
This has made it difficult for any prime minister to garner the necessary support to pass any bills.
Michel Barnier was appointed prime minister last September but was ousted within three months.
The government of his successor François Bayrou’s too was voted down after nine months after parliament refused to back his austerity budget, which aimed to slash government spending by €44bn ($51bn; £38bn).
France’s deficit reached 5.8% of its GDP in 2024 and its national debt is 114% of its GDP. That is the third highest public debt in the eurozone after Greece and Italy, and equivalent to almost €50,000 per French citizen.
Stocks fell sharply on the Paris exchange after the news of Lecornu’s resignation broke on Monday morning.
[BBC]
Donald Trump has stressed that any deal with Iran must result in the country’s “unconditional surrender”, setting maximalist war objectives for the United States.
The US president’s remarks on his Truth Social platform on Friday appear to reject the prospect of a compromise amid Iranian confirmation of diplomatic mediation to end the conflict.
“There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” Trump wrote.
“After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had said earlier that some countries are engaging in mediation efforts to end the war, emphasising that Iran is committed to peace in the region but prepared to defend itself.
“Mediation should address those who underestimated the Iranian people and ignited this conflict,” Pezeshkian said in a social media statement.
The conflict has spread across the Middle East, igniting Iranian attacks across the Gulf and a war between Hezbollah and Israel, resulting in a mass displacement crisis in Lebanon.
Iran has been launching missiles and drones at Israel and US interests and assets across the region. Iranian forces have also targeted energy and civilian infrastructure in Gulf countries, straining ties with the Arab world.
The violence, which saw Iran largely succeed in closing down the Strait of Hormuz, has sent oil prices soaring globally.
Iranian officials have expressed defiance since the start of the war, stressing that they are ready for a long conflict and prepared to fend off a US ground invasion should it occur.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a message to Trump on Thursday that the US plan for a “clean rapid military victory failed”.
“Your Plan B will be even a bigger failure,” Araghchi wrote on X.
On Friday, Iran’s top diplomat posted a photo of the coffins of a mother and child, the apparent victims of US-Israeli attacks. “Our Brave and Powerful Armed Forces will avenge each and every Iranian mother, father, and child who has been targeted by hostile forces,” Araghchi wrote.
The war has killed at least 1,332 people in Iran, among them 181 children, according to UNICEF.
The deadliest incident was a strike on a girls’ primary school in the southern city of Minab on the opening day of the conflict, which Iranian authorities said killed about 180 pupils and staff.
The Trump administration has pushed to project confidence and dominance over Iran, with top officials saying that the US would “rain missiles”, “death and destruction” on the country.
In recent days, Trump has repeatedly said that he would like to replicate the Venezuela playbook in Iran – keeping the governing system in place but installing a leader who is friendly to US interests.
On Wednesday, Trump said he has to be “involved” in choosing the successor of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated in a US-Israeli attack on Saturday.
Trump told CNN later on Thursday that the situation in Iran is going to work “easily” like it did in Venezuela when Delcy Rodigues replaced President Nicolas Maduro after he was abducted by US forces in January.
Rodriguez, who previously served as Maduro’s vice president, has allowed Washington to sell Venezuela’s oil and cut off petroleum supplies to Cuba under the threat of further US strikes.
Trump said he does not mind of the next leader of Iran is a religious figure.
“I’m saying there has to be a leader that’s going be fair and just. Do a great job. Treat the United States and Israel well, and treat the other countries in the Middle East — they’re all our partners,” he told CNN.
The supreme leader of Iran must be a Shia Muslim religious scholar.
Khamenei’s successor will be selected by an elected council of 88 members known as the Assembly of Experts.
[Aljazeera]
A tiny possum with one extra-long finger on each hand is one of two species thought to have been extinct that have been discovered in West Papua, in what’s been called an “exceptional” scientific discovery.
The other is a a ring-tailed glider with a tail that can grasp branches. Both have been found living in remote rainforests after they were thought to have disappeared 6,000 years ago.
Finding living examples of a lost species is rare, but discovering two is “remarkable,” say scientists who published their findings in the Records of the Australian Museum journal on Friday.
Such discoveries are known as “lazarus taxon”, a term inspired by a biblical figure who was raised from the dead.
“The discovery of one lazarus taxon… is an exceptional discovery,” said Prof Tim Flannery, a prominent Australian scientist best known for his 2005 The Weather Makers book about climate change.
“But the discovery of two species, thought to have been extinct for thousands of years, is remarkable.”
The first rediscovered species was the pygmy long-fingered possum, a striped marsupial weighing about 200g, which is understood to have vanished from Australia during the Ice Age.
A distinguishing feature is that on each hand, the possum’s fourth finger is twice the length of other digits, which scientists say help it dig out wood-boring insect larvae, it’s main source of food.
The second species is the ring-tailed glider, and just like its Australian cousin the greater glider, it lives in the hollows of tall trees.
The discoveries were made by piecing together parts of a puzzle with scientists combing through decades-old fossils, rare photos and old specimens to gather clues before making visits to remote New Guinea locations.
Flannery, along with another of the paper’s co-authors Prof Kris Helgen and researchers from the University of Papau, spoke to local elders from the Tambrauw and Maybrat clans – some of whom have only had contact with the modern world since the 1960s.
Identification of the species would not have been possible without their help, according to Rika Korain, a Maybrat woman and another co-author.
“They’re very traditional people,” Flannery added, and regard the glider as so sacred that “not only won’t they hunt it, they won’t mention its name”.
But the gliders habitat was increasingly coming under threat from logging in the area, Flannery said.
This, in part, has prompted efforts by scientists and wildlife groups to try secure native title for the forests to ensure logging cannot be carried out without consent from locals, he said.
(BBC)
The death toll from Israeli attacks on Lebanon this week has risen to at least 123 people, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health says, as a new wave of strikes pounded the country and Hezbollah warned Israeli residents to evacuate towns within 5km (3 miles) of their northern border, in one of the fiercest fronts in the wider United States – Israel war on Iran.
“The toll from the Israeli aggression on Monday, increased to 123 martyrs and 683 wounded,” a ministry statement said on Thursday.
Lebanese state media said early on Friday that Israel had launched air strikes on several towns in southern Lebanon.
“Enemy warplanes launched nighttime strikes on the towns of Srifa, Aita al-Shaab, Touline, as-Sawana and Majdal Selem,” the official National News Agency (NNA) reported.
Another strike hit the eastern Lebanese town of Douris at dawn, the NNA said.
The Israeli army also reported a new attack on the suburb of Dahiyeh in Beirut.
It has also continued attacks in southern Lebanon with raids on the area’s biggest city Sidon, according to sources on the ground.
NNA also reported Israeli warplanes over the southern towns of Tyre and Bint Jbeil.
(Aljazeera)
‘No deal with Iran except unconditional surrender,’ Trump says
Tiny possum and glider thought extinct for 6,000 years found in remote West Papua
Maldives Coast Guard Ship Huravee departs island
Cost to US for war on Iran is $3.7bn in first 100 hours, says think tank
More than 120 killed in Israel’s Lebanon attacks as Beirut, south, east hit
Hungary confirms it is holding seven Ukrainian bank workers and $80m
‘Dates have the highest sugar content to fight Coronavirus’
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