“If nothing changes, the outcome is already known … This government will fall,” the Socialists’ leader Olivier Faure said.
Jean-Philippe Tanguy, who handles the far-right National Rally’s economic policy, accused the prime minister of trying to “buy time” by delaying budget announcements in an interview.
Union leaders, who have repeatedly accused Lecornu of ignoring their demands, will spend Thursday on the picket lines in the second general strike of Lecornu’s short tenure. His first full day as premier coincided with a nebulous movement to “block everything” that failed to materialize.
Lecornu has acknowledged his relatively tenuous position as a head of a minority government, and recent polling shows he enjoys the support of just a third of the French public. But the prime minister appears to be sticking to his guns in talks with the Socialists, the opposition party seen as most willing to negotiate.
A high-ranking Socialist lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told POLITICO that the party “sincerely wanted to reach an agreement” with Lecornu to avoid a third government collapse in less than a year. The center-left party was instrumental in taking down Lecornu’s two immediate predecessors over their budget plans.
But, the lawmaker added, any deal would require Lecornu and President Emmanuel Macron to accept some “symbolic defeats.”