At Matignon, Sébastien Lecornu, the new Prime Minister, is working to finalize a streamlined 2025 government composition, centered around about twenty portfolios, under the watchful eye of Emmanuel Macron. Interviews and decisions are being made in quick succession before the opening of the ordinary session on October 1, 2025, while LR, PS, LIOT, and RN test the budgetary line — without the return of the ISF — and the sovereign balances. Objective: to pass the 2025 budget of France with a relative majority, prioritizing stability.
At Matignon, the art of endless decisions
At Matignon, the morning light does not ease the urgencies. Sébastien Lecornu, appointed Prime Minister on September 9, 2025, orchestrates interviews, cross-checks profiles, revisits balances. The promised method is displayed as a banner: a streamlined government, around twenty-five members or so, with key ministers retained to avoid upheavals. The Élysée is closely monitoring. Emmanuel Macron is growing impatient, according to advisors. Indeed, the opening of the ordinary session on October 1, 2025 imposes a strict schedule. No negotiation can slow down this process.
The sequence is tight. The head of government wishes to announce his team. He plans a 2025 reshuffle announcement before the start of parliamentary work. Thus, he can address the budgetary agenda and sovereign issues in one move. The drama hangs by a thread: stabilize, reassure, convince, without an absolute majority and without giving rise to accusations of immobility.
Streamlined government: a promise of method
Lecornu‘s bet is to replace the accumulation of portfolios with a collective with clear contours. A smaller team should, according to him, make the State more readable and action faster. The logic is known. The era demands less rumor and more continuity, especially in so-called sensitive ministries: Interior, Justice, Education, Foreign Affairs. The goal is to put an end to "ministerial tourism" that blurs public policies and exhausts administrations. Stability becomes a policy in its own right.
This promise does not eliminate constraints. Throughout the consultations, LR, PS, LIOT, and RN scrutinize every move and weigh every inflection. The former want sovereign and fiscal guarantees. The latter demand signs of social justice. The pivotal groups, for their part, expect commitments to method, starting with real consultation on the finance bill.
The budgetary red lines that close doors
The heart of the disagreement is budgetary. No return of the ISF, no "Zucman tax", no suspension of the pension reform: the line that Lecornu detailed at the end of September outlines a narrow corridor. The targeted deficit, around 4.7% of GDP in 2026, serves as a guiding star. The executive shows the will not to scare the markets or investment. At the same time, it promises an effort on spending rather than on taxes. This economic grammar reassures the right and irritates the left. It also complicates the search for a compromise with the socialists. Indeed, they make the contribution on very high wealth a political marker.
On State Medical Aid, the Prime Minister says he is ready to "open the discussion." The subject is inflammable. It touches both finances and symbolism. The figures, however, remind us that AME weighs little in health spending and that its potential restrictions would have contested health and budgetary effects. Between budgetary imperatives and public health principles, Matignon seeks a path that does not further fracture the assembly.
LR or PS, the sustainability dilemma
The relative majority of about 210 seats requires building, in session, parliamentary alliances of circumstance. Two options emerge. Try a limited programmatic agreement with LR. This agreement would focus on public order, spending control, and competitiveness. Or secure, case by case, PS and LIOT support on the budget, at the cost of targeted amendments and a more pronounced social rhetoric. The tolerance of the RN, brandished as a threat or as a blind spot, haunts the corridors without ever being spoken aloud. Each path has its pitfalls. The first might close off part of the center-left. The second could alienate the right and fuel accusations of "fiscal drift."
In this precarious game, Olivier Faure observes and lists his conditions, while Bruno Retailleau reminds that any agreement requires tangible guarantees. The parliamentary mechanics are not abstract: they add up numbers, egos, territories. They often exhaust themselves with half-words and ulterior motives. Above all, they require the head of government to compose Lecornu ministers, skilled in compromise in session, capable of holding their text, speaking group to group, neutralizing blind spots.
The sovereign portfolios, the nerve of a stability narrative
Rumors do their work, and they must be taken for what they are. According to several press articles published at the end of September, Benjamin Haddad appears as the presumed favorite for the Armed Forces, while Jean-Louis Thiériot and Catherine Vautrin are cited as alternative options. At Bercy, for the 2025 Minister of Economy portfolio, the name of Roland Lescure is circulating. At Budget, Amélie de Montchalin is mentioned but her fate remains uncertain. At Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot could be retained, while Manuel Valls is sometimes suggested for Overseas. Nothing is decided, everything is conditional. Matignon and the Élysée know that the strongest appointment will be supported in Parliament.
Bercy at the heart of the equation
Almost everything comes back to Bercy. The architecture of the 2026 budget will decide possible alliances. If the spending trajectory is tight, and savings affect operators and social policies, the center-left will retreat. If the government grants leeway on purchasing power or ecological taxation, the right will worry. Indeed, it fears a shift that would increase labor costs. In this labyrinth, Lecornu has chosen to announce the color: priority to deficit reduction, refusal of a fiscal symbol perceived as punitive, promise of a more economical State. The message speaks to the Senate and part of the LR elected officials. LR, PS, and RN brandish the weapon of censure as an instrument of social order reminder.
Bercy is not just about numbers. It’s a narrative. If entrusted to Lescure, industrial and energy continuity would be highlighted. If it returned to a more political profile, the focus would shift to budget negotiation in session. Additionally, it would include the fine-tuning of compromises and the management of amendments. Whatever the option, the Budget will be the inaugural test of the Lecornu government.
National Assembly, 2025 session: theater of possibilities
The stage is set: opening of the ordinary session on October 1 at 3 p.m., then legislative ramp-up the following week. In the assembly, words will count as much as numbers. With Nupes having exploded, the socialists intend to stand out without cutting ties with ecological allies. LR seeks a balance between identity opposition and reformist utility. RN watches for missteps to position itself as an alternative of order. LIOT presents itself as an auxiliary broker, valuable for calming the fever of an article, an amendment, a title.
The relative majority of Renaissance is no longer really one. It holds by the inertia of institutions and the groups’ taste for influence. The slightest incident in session can turn an evening around. The pension reform, maintained, remains a sticking point. Lecornu bets on a method discourse: calm the pace, extend exchanges, admit improvements without touching the foundations. It remains to be seen if this modesty can suffice to contain social impatience and the harshness of the times.
Emmanuel Macron’s supporting role
In this score, Emmanuel Macron plays a less visible but decisive role. He validates balances, decides difficult cases, evaluates the shock wave of a name on public opinion. It is whispered that he wants ministers capable of holding firm over time, even if it means retaining already exposed profiles. Stability is worth more than the thrill of novelty. The presidency assumes that the era demands craftsmen rather than headliners. Authority is rebuilt through patience, the entourage insists, even if the parliamentary clock dictates its law.
The relationship between the president and his Prime Minister will be scrutinized. It is neither fusion nor distant. It operates on granted trust and discreet control. The head of state knows that the essential will play out in the National Assembly. It is up to Lecornu to obtain, through the composition of the government and the method in session, the political credit necessary to pass the finance bill.
A method more than a casting
One would like to believe that everything boils down to names. It’s an illusion. The casting matters, but the method will matter more. Alliances are built on guarantees, gestures, schedules. A streamlined government guarantees nothing if it merely repeats already known lines. Conversely, a stable cabinet, speaking with one voice, can gain time and votes.
The week ahead will tell if Lecornu transposes his knowledge of power dynamics, forged in local governments and ministries, to the crafting of a shifting parliamentary bloc. He will need to maintain sovereign stability and budgetary credibility. Furthermore, he must ensure social openness without alienating potential allies. He will also need to clarify, from the announcement, the meaning of the promised streamlining: fewer silos, more responsibilities, more decisions made quickly.
Final stretch: a majority to convince
At this stage, an announcement window remains plausible at the end of the week of October 4-5. The budgetary line is clearly set. What remains is a relative majority that can only move forward by convincing rather than coercing. The final decisions, unexpected balances, and counter-moves dictated by the National Assembly still form the unknown part. This is the price of a living parliamentarism: an art of the possible in motion, sometimes on the edge of the void, without yielding to the fall.