PARIS (Reuters) -France's new Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu and his government resigned on Monday, hours after Lecornu announced his cabinet line-up, making it the shortest-lived administration in modern French history and deepening the country's political crisis. The unexpected resignation came after allies and foes alike threatened to topple the new government, with Lecornu saying that meant he could not do his job. Opposition parties immediately urged President Emmanuel Macron to resign, or call a snap parliamentary election, saying there was no other way out of the crisis.
For Americans who don’t have a similar system, a “government collapse” isn’t as big a deal as it sounds. It sounds like there’s a complete breakdown in law and order and nobody’s in charge. Really what happens is that the arrangement that so-and-so will be prime minister and his cabinet will be X, Y and Z is off.
Sometimes it means there are new elections. But, sometimes (as in the French system) it just means that the various representatives all negotiate among themselves to choose a new prime minister. The President then appoints that person. It can vary from the president rubber stamping the decision, to the President getting involved in the negotiations and playing a key role in choosing the next PM. Once the President makes it official, that person becomes PM and then chooses a new cabinet. Before a new PM is chosen there’s a bit of chaos. The government can still vote on things, but the normal process is disrupted because there’s no “first among equals” to lead. In the case of France, normally the President doesn’t (or shouldn’t) deal with the day-to-day running of the government. But, during the previous government’s collapse Macron stepped in to do many things the Prime Minister would normally do.
One minor twist here. In theory, a French President is supposed to handle foreign policy and defence. The Prime Minister is supposed to run domestic things, including the day-to-day government functions. One reason why this government lasted 14 hours (or 27 days if you count his full time as PM) is that Macron was seen as having too heavy a hand in picking not just the PM Lecornu (picking the PM is technically his job as President), but also in picking the PM’s cabinet (which is supposed to be something the PM does himself). As soon as Lecornu announced his cabinet, the rest of the elected reps saw that it was essentially the same as the one they just voted down a month ago. They said they weren’t going to work with Lecornu’s government, so Lecornu quit immediately.
From a Canadian who also doesn’t have a similar system and was confused about why you’d have both a president and a PM, thank you.
Canada does have a sort-of similar system. It’s just that the “president” in Canada is “the crown”, which is the Governor General representing the current British monarch. It’s much more of a ceremonial role in Canada, but technically the Governor General does appoint the Prime Minister.
Australia has essentially the same system as Canada. In 1975 the Australian Governor General dismissed the Prime Minister and picked the leader of the opposition as Prime Minister so that he could call an election. Described like that it seems like a blatant abuse of power. But, the background was a really dysfunctional government. One party had narrow control over the house, the other had narrow control over the senate, and the senate was blocking everything the house tried to do. I don’t know the full details of what happened in that affair, but it seems like it could be a good thing if a Governor General would step in in a crisis resolve a deadlock.
Canada also has the “confidence votes” part of the crisis in France. AFAIK in Canada losing a confidence vote immediately triggers an election, unlike in France where it can just lead to a scramble to see who can become the new PM among the existing representatives. Because triggering an election is a big deal, it doesn’t tend to happen too often. But it has happened. In 2011 Stephen Harper’s government lost a confidence vote, and there was an immediate election, but he won that election. In 2007 Paul Martin’s government also fell to a confidence vote.
Thank you! Yes, it sounded a bit like our gov general but seemed more involved. Appreciate the thorough response :)