Embattled French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu survives no-confidence votes in Parliament

PARIS (AP) — French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu survived two votes of no-confidence Thursday that could have toppled his fragile new government and plunged France deeper into political chaos.

The National Assembly votes clear 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 dissolve the National Assembly and call snap legislative elections, a hazardous option that the French leader took in 2024 and which he had signaled that he might take again if Lecornu fell.

Lecornu, a close ally of the French president, faced two no-confidence motions filed by Macron’s fiercest opponents — the hard-left France Unbowed party and Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally and her allies in Parliament.

The 577-seat chamber voted on the France Unbowed motion first — and it fell short by 18 votes, with 271 lawmakers supporting it. It needed a majority of 289 votes to succeed.

Le Pen’s second motion got just 144 votes, well short of a majority, backed only by her party, its allied Union of the Right for the Republic and a handful of other lawmakers.

Yaël Braun-Pivet, the National Assembly president and a Macron loyalist, said the outcome left her “reasonably optimistic” about the chances of building consensus for the 2026 budget in Parliament despite its deep divisions.

“I am sure that there's a path,” she said.

But Lecornu isn’t out of the woods yet.

To get the votes he needed, Lecornu dangled the possibility of rolling back one of the flagship but most unpopular reforms of Macron’s second term as president, which will gradually raise France’s retirement age from 62 to 64.

Lecornu’s proposed suspension of the 2023 pension reform helped convince lawmakers from the opposition Socialist Party to grudgingly decide not to back the efforts to topple him, at least for now.

With 69 lawmakers, Socialist backing for Lecornu's removal would have tipped the outcome against him. But just seven Socialists broke ranks in voting for the France Unbowed motion.

The conservative Republicans, with 50 lawmakers, also withheld backing for Lecornu's removal, despite a fiery appeal for support from Éric Ciotti, a former Republicans leader who since 2024 has allied with Le Pen's far right.

“Don't compromise yourselves by supporting this government. Don't swallow this snake, this boa (constrictor), this pink alligator,” Ciotti said. “No voter on the right will forgive you.”

In the closest-run first motion, just one Republicans lawmaker backed Lecornu's removal. But for Le Pen's second motion, with lower stakes because it had little chance of succeeding, three Republicans broke ranks and voted against the prime minister, underscoring that conservative tolerance for Lecornu could quickly run dry in the coming weeks or months.

Lecornu's still fragile position could yet crumble if Socialist or Republicans lawmakers change tack and support any future no-confidence votes if they don’t get what they want in the budget negotiations that are sure to be fractious.

Lecornu has promised not to use a special constitutional power to railroad the budget through Parliament without lawmakers’ approval — which was the tool that Macron’s government employed to impose the 2023 pension reform despite a firestorm of protests.

Building consensus in Parliament for tax hikes, spending cuts and other budget measures to start reining in France’s ballooning state deficit and debt promises to be extremely difficult, with the National Assembly deeply divided since Macron dissolved it in June 2024. The ensuing legislative elections produced no outright winner and precipitated the political deadlock that has gripped France ever since, with Macron's prime ministers falling in quick succession.

The prospect of a hard-fought presidential race when Macron's second and last term ends in 2027 is also complicating consensus-building, with political parties already looking to score points with voters. Addressing lawmakers before they voted, Lecornu urged them to put those considerations aside for now.

“History, in any case, will judge these political maneuvers very harshly, where the platform of the National Assembly has essentially been confused with an advertising platform,” he said. “The presidential election will come. You will have the opportunity to campaign. For now, do not hold the nation’s budget and the Social Security budget hostage.”

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Leicester reported from Le Pecq, France. AP journalists Alex Turnbull and Nicolas Garriga in Paris contributed.

Scoreboards at the National Assembly show the results of a no-confidence motion vote on French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu's government in Paris, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

French socialist party general secretary Olivier Faure, right, talks with the president of the Socialist group in the National Assembly Boris Vallaud before a no-confidence vote, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025 at the National Assembly in Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen attends debates before a no-confidence vote, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025 at the National Assembly in Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Lawmakers look on a phone at the National Assembly the results of a no-confidence motion vote on French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu's government in Paris, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu listens to speeches before a no-confidence vote, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025 at the National Assembly in Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu drinks as he listens to speeches before a no-confidence vote, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025 at the National Assembly in Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Federal immigration agents deployed to Minneapolis have used aggressive crowd-control tactics that have become a dominant concern in the aftermath of the deadly shooting of a woman in her car last week.

They have pointed rifles at demonstrators and deployed chemical irritants early in confrontations. They have broken vehicle windows and pulled occupants from cars. They have scuffled with protesters and shoved them to the ground.

The government says the actions are necessary to protect officers from violent attacks. The encounters in turn have riled up protesters even more, especially as videos of the incidents are shared widely on social media.

What is unfolding in Minneapolis reflects a broader shift in how the federal government is asserting its authority during protests, relying on immigration agents and investigators to perform crowd-management roles traditionally handled by local police who often have more training in public order tactics and de-escalating large crowds.

Experts warn the approach runs counter to de-escalation standards and risks turning volatile demonstrations into deadly encounters.

The confrontations come amid a major immigration enforcement surge ordered by the Trump administration in early December, which sent more than 2,000 officers from across the Department of Homeland Security into the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Many of the officers involved are typically tasked with arrests, deportations and criminal investigations, not managing volatile public demonstrations.

Tensions escalated after the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman killed by an immigration agent last week, an incident federal officials have defended as self-defense after they say Good weaponized her vehicle.

The killing has intensified protests and scrutiny of the federal response.

On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota asked a federal judge to intervene, filing a lawsuit on behalf of six residents seeking an emergency injunction to limit how federal agents operate during protests, including restrictions on the use of chemical agents, the pointing of firearms at non-threatening individuals and interference with lawful video recording.

“There’s so much about what’s happening now that is not a traditional approach to immigration apprehensions,” said former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldaña.

Saldaña, who left the post at the beginning of 2017 as President Donald Trump's first term began, said she can't speak to how the agency currently trains its officers. When she was director, she said officers received training on how to interact with people who might be observing an apprehension or filming officers, but agents rarely had to deal with crowds or protests.

“This is different. You would hope that the agency would be responsive given the evolution of what’s happening — brought on, mind you, by the aggressive approach that has been taken coming from the top,” she said.

Ian Adams, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of South Carolina, said the majority of crowd-management or protest training in policing happens at the local level — usually at larger police departments that have public order units.

“It’s highly unlikely that your typical ICE agent has a great deal of experience with public order tactics or control,” Adams said.

DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a written statement that ICE officer candidates receive extensive training over eight weeks in courses that include conflict management and de-escalation. She said many of the candidates are military veterans and about 85% have previous law enforcement experience.

“All ICE candidates are subject to months of rigorous training and selection at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, where they are trained in everything from de-escalation tactics to firearms to driving training. Homeland Security Investigations candidates receive more than 100 days of specialized training," she said.

Ed Maguire, a criminology professor at Arizona State University, has written extensively about crowd-management and protest- related law enforcement training. He said while he hasn't seen the current training curriculum for ICE officers, he has reviewed recent training materials for federal officers and called it “horrifying.”

Maguire said what he's seeing in Minneapolis feels like a perfect storm for bad consequences.

“You can't even say this doesn't meet best practices. That's too high a bar. These don't seem to meet generally accepted practices,” he said.

“We’re seeing routinely substandard law enforcement practices that would just never be accepted at the local level,” he added. “Then there seems to be just an absence of standard accountability practices.”

Adams noted that police department practices have "evolved to understand that the sort of 1950s and 1960s instinct to meet every protest with force, has blowback effects that actually make the disorder worse.”

He said police departments now try to open communication with organizers, set boundaries and sometimes even show deference within reason. There's an understanding that inside of a crowd, using unnecessary force can have a domino effect that might cause escalation from protesters and from officers.

Despite training for officers responding to civil unrest dramatically shifting over the last four decades, there is no nationwide standard of best practices. For example, some departments bar officers from spraying pepper spray directly into the face of people exercising Constitutional speech. Others bar the use of tear gas or other chemical agents in residential neighborhoods.

Regardless of the specifics, experts recommend that departments have written policies they review regularly.

“Organizations and agencies aren’t always familiar with what their own policies are,” said Humberto Cardounel, senior director of training and technical assistance at the National Policing Institute.

“They go through it once in basic training then expect (officers) to know how to comport themselves two years later, five years later," he said. "We encourage them to understand and know their training, but also to simulate their training.”

Adams said part of the reason local officers are the best option for performing public order tasks is they have a compact with the community.

“I think at the heart of this is the challenge of calling what ICE is doing even policing,” he said.

"Police agencies have a relationship with their community that extends before and after any incidents. Officers know we will be here no matter what happens, and the community knows regardless of what happens today, these officers will be here tomorrow.”

Saldaña noted that both sides have increased their aggression.

“You cannot put yourself in front of an armed officer, you cannot put your hands on them certainly. That is impeding law enforcement actions,” she said.

“At this point, I’m getting concerned on both sides — the aggression from law enforcement and the increasingly aggressive behavior from protesters.”

Law enforcement officers at the scene of a reported shooting Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

Federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

People cover tear gas deployed by federal immigration officers outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

A man is pushed to the ground as federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A woman covers her face from tear gas as federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)