French PM Sébastien Lecornu survives first of two no-confidence votes in Parliament

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu survived a vote of no-confidence Thursday that could have toppled his fragile new government and plunged France deeper into political chaos.

The National Assembly vote clears the way for the embattled Lecornu to pursue what could be an even greater challenge: getting a 2026 budget for the European Union’s second-largest economy through Parliament’s powerful but bitterly divided lower house before the end of the year.

Lecornu’s survival also spares any immediate need for President Emmanuel Macron to again dissolve the National Assembly and call snap legislative elections, a hazardous option that the French leader had signaled he might take if Lecornu fell.