Less than a week after surviving a five-month battle over the France’s budget for 2026the Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu presented its agenda over the weekend, prioritizing energy and defense.
Budget disputes consumed French politics for nearly two years and cost two prime ministers before Lecornu was appointed in September.
“France has a budget that aims to reduce the deficit to 5% without raising taxes. Few believed this would happen in the fall,” Lecornu said.
Despite growing popularity and polls showing that neither President Emmanuel Macron’s centrists nor conservatives could defeat the far-right Rassemblement National in the 2027 presidential election, Lecornu repeated that he had no interest in running.
He added that a minor cabinet reshuffle would take place before the March local elections.
Here are Lecornu’s priorities for the coming months.
Energy
The prime minister said the government’s next “multi-year energy program” would be signed by decree by the end of next week, after more than two years of delays.
He confirmed that state-owned EDF will build , with options for another eight, while investments in renewable energy — including offshore wind, solar and geothermal — will remain “ambitious”.
“Next, we will need to consider incentives to accelerate electrification. The goal is to ensure that 60% of our consumption in 2030 is electric.”
Defense
“Increasing the (57 billion euros or US$67.35 billion), which will double between 2017 and 2027, is essential… we must continue,” said Lecornu.
He also stated that the military programming law will be updated by Bastille Day, on July 14.
Decentralization
“The new international scenario and the situation of our public finance make it urgent to refocus the State on certain tasks. Therefore, he must rely more clearly on other local public actors to exercise certain powers”, stated Lecornu.
He added that a bill containing 50 “simplification” measures would be presented to parliament before local elections in March.
State Medical Assistance
promised to maintain AME (State Medical Assistance), a French social assistance program that mainly covers the medical costs of undocumented migrants — which the far right has promised to eliminate if it comes to power in 2027.
However, he announced two decrees to reform the program: one aimed at combating fraud, with savings of 180 million euros, and another focused on modernizing the government’s IT systems to ensure that all civil servants responsible for the program have access.
