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Sébastien Lecornu

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Sébastien Lecornu
Lecornu in 2020
Minister of the Armed Forces
Incumbent
Assumed office
20 May 2022
Prime MinisterÉlisabeth Borne
Gabriel Attal
Michel Barnier
François Bayrou
Preceded byFlorence Parly
Minister of the Overseas
In office
6 July 2020 – 20 May 2022
Prime MinisterJean Castex
Preceded byAnnick Girardin
Succeeded byYaël Braun-Pivet
Minister for Local Authorities
In office
16 October 2018 – 6 July 2020
Prime MinisterÉdouard Philippe
Preceded byJean-Michel Baylet (2017)
Succeeded byJacqueline Gourault
Secretary of State to the Minister of the Ecological and Inclusive Transition
In office
21 June 2017 – 16 October 2018
Prime MinisterÉdouard Philippe
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byEmmanuelle Wargon
President of the Departmental Council of Eure
In office
1 July 2021 – 16 December 2022
Preceded byPascal Lehongre
Succeeded byAlexandre Rassaërt
In office
2 April 2015 – 10 July 2017
Preceded byJean-Louis Destans
Succeeded byPascal Lehongre
Mayor of Vernon
In office
5 April 2014 – 4 December 2015
Preceded byPhilippe Nguyen Thanh
Succeeded byFrançois Ouzilleau
Personal details
Born (1986-06-11) 11 June 1986 (age 39)
Eaubonne, France
Political partyRenaissance (2017–present)
Other political
affiliations		Union for a Popular Movement (2002–2015)
The Republicans (2015–2017)
ResidenceHôtel de Brienne (official)
Alma materPanthéon-Assas University

Sébastien Lecornu ([sebastjɛ̃ ləkɔʁny] ⓘ; born 11 June 1986) is a French politician who has served as Minister of the Armed Forces in the governments of successive Prime Ministers Élisabeth Borne, Gabriel Attal, Michel Barnier and François Bayrou[1] since 2022.[2][1]

Since leaving The Republicans (LR) in 2017, Lecornu has been a member of Renaissance (RE, formerly La République en marche). Lecornu was President of the Departmental Council of Eure from 2015 to 2017. In government, he served as Secretary of State to the Minister of the Ecological and Inclusive Transition (2017–2018), Minister for Local Authorities (2018–2020) and Minister of the Overseas (2020–2022).

Early life and education

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Lecornu was born on 11 June 1986 in Eaubonne, Val-d'Oise region, from the marriage of Jean-Pierre Lecornu, an aeronautical technician at the Safran Aircraft Engines factory in Vernon, and Martine Rousseau, a medical secretary.[3] Close to his Gaullist grandfather, a former resistance fighter and former vice-president of a chamber of commerce in Calvados, he was passionate about the army and politics and initially wanted to become a soldier[3]. He also tried monastic life at the Abbey of Saint-Wandrille.[4]

He completed his secondary studies at the private Catholic institution Saint-Adjutor de Vernon[1],[5]. Holder of a baccalaureate in economics and social sciences, he obtained a law degree and then began an unfinished master's degree in public law at the Panthéon-Assas University.

In 2002, Lecornu became an activist in the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), joined the Young Right of the Vernon region (JDV), then campaigned during the campaign for the 2004 2004 regional elections.

In 2005, he became a parliamentary assistant to Franck Gilard, the member of the National Assembly for Eure's 5th constituency; Lecornu was, at the time, the youngest parliamentary assistant in the National Assembly.[5] In 2008, he became an advisor to Secretary of State for European Affairs Bruno Le Maire; at age 22 Lecornu was the youngest advisor to an official in the government of Prime Minister François Fillon.

He is a member of the National Gendarmerie operational reserve with the rank of lieutenant. He was appointed colonel as a reserve specialist in the fall of 2017.

Political career

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Career in local politics

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In the 2014 municipal election, Lecornu was elected Mayor of Vernon. The combination of two executive mandates being incompatible, he abandoned the town hall of Vernon on 4 December 2015.

Following the 2015 departmental elections in which he was elected councillor for the canton of Vernon alongside Catherine Delalande, Lecornu became President of the Departmental Council of Eure.

Lecornu highlights his refusal to raise taxes and rigorous management of public money. Mediapart points out that the hunt for RSA fraudsters has been - with great communication support - the flagship policy pursued by the department since the arrival of Lecornu. It is also closing two priority education colleges, which it justifies by their low occupancy rates.[6]

Secretary of State

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Sébastien Lecornu in 2017

In 2017, Lecornu was appointed to be a Secretary of State to the Minister for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition by President Emmanuel Macron.

Lecornu was then suspended from his duties within The Republicans by the party and disciplinary exclusion proceedings were brought against him. He was excluded from LR on 31 October 2017, with Gérald Darmanin, also a member of the government, and the member of the National Assembly, Franck Riester and Thierry Solère.[7] He then joined La République en marche.

Nicolas Hulot delegated issues related to energy in general to Lecornu. In particular, he was entrusted with several sensitive files such as the closure of the Fessenheim Nuclear Power Plant, the opening of the Flamanville's EPR, or the Cigeo nuclear waste landfill project in Bure.[8]

Minister of Local Authorities

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On 16 October 2018, Lecornu was appointed Minister of Local Authorities to the Minister of Territorial Cohesion and Relations with Local Authorities, Jacqueline Gourault.[9]

On 14 January 2019, Lecornu was appointed with Emmanuelle Wargon to lead the "great national debate", organised in order to get out of the crisis caused by the yellow vests movement.[10]

Minister of the Overseas

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On 6 July 2020, Lecornu was appointed Minister of the Overseas in the Castex government.[citation needed] In this capacity, he held crisis talks on the French Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe in late 2021, in an effort to defuse tensions amid unrest stemming from the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic there.[11] He also announced that France would be willing to discuss autonomy for Guadeloupe.[12]

Elected senator for Eure in September 2020, he left his seat to Nicole Duranton, as he had announced before his election, after a period of one month after entering the Luxembourg Palace.[13][14] Affected by the accumulation of mandates, he resigned from his mandate as deputy mayor, which he had held since 2015, and from the municipal council of Vernon, on 3 November 2020; this resignation also led to his departure from the community council of the Seine Normandie Agglomeration.[15][16]

A candidate for re-election in the canton of Vernon during the 2021 departmental elections, he came out on top in the first round with 58.74% of the votes cast, but the high abstention rate did not allow him to be directly elected.[17] He was re-elected in the second round with 81.11% of the votes. To everyone's surprise, while still Minister of Overseas Territories, he resumed the presidency of the Eure departmental council, obtaining the 39 votes of the majority, contrary to the practice established by Lionel Jospin in 1997 of not combining an executive mandate with a government function; he was authorized to do so "for a time" by Emmanuel Macron and Jean Castex.[18][19]

Minister of the Armed Forces

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Lecornu with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in 2022

On 20 May 2022, Lecornu was appointed Minister of the Armed Forces in the Borne government.[20]

International crises Early in his tenure, Lecornu and Minister of Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna travelled to Niger together to seal a regional redeployment, making the country the hub for French troops in the Sahel region.[21]

After Ukraine was invaded by Russia in 2022 and NATO allies were in the midst of supplying arms to Ukraine, Lecornu stated at the end of December 2022 in an official visit to Kyiv that the two problems of maintenance and training were the reason for which the Leclerc tanks would stay at home. There were other troubling signs that all was not well with the effort to aid Ukraine. For example, although the CAESAR mobile artillery system had proven very useful to the June 2022 bombardment and recapture of Snake Island and dominated the battle elsewhere, the Ukrainians were having difficulty with the maintenance of the 18 systems and the solution was problematic. Ukrainian defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov hoped that French tradesmen could be sent to Ukraine to service the artillery pieces.[22]

Military procurements In December 2022, Lecornu and Mariusz Błaszczak signed an agreement between France and Poland on the 575 million euros ($611.69 million) sale of two Airbus Defence and Space observation satellites to Poland.[23]

In April 2023, he presented the Military Programming Law (LPM), which is to apply from 2024 to 2030, and provides for 413 billion euros of military spending over the seven years of the fiscal year. The annual budget will thus increase from 32 billion in 2017 to 69 billion in 2030, a doubling of funding for the armed forces. This budget must notably cover investments in the French nuclear arsenal, the construction of a new aircraft carrier and the increase in the number of armed forces. The government also plans to raise the age limit for reservists to 70, whereas it is currently between 62 and 65, with the objective of providing the armed forces with 300,000 soldiers, including 100,000 reservists. The intelligence services should also see their budget increase by 60%.[24]

In March 2024, Lecornu announced that Les Forges de Tarbes would henceforth have the capacity to produce 4,000 artillery shells per month.[25] It produced 1,000 per month as of February 2022, the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[26] Also in March 2024, according to Lecornu, the Russian war machine was able to fire between 10,000 and 15,000 shells per day in Ukraine.[26]

In July 2024, Lecornu and his counterparts from Germany, Italy and Poland signed a letter of intent to develop ground-launched cruise missiles with a range beyond 500 km (310 miles).[27]

Honours

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National honours

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Foreign honours

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References

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  1. ^ a b "Key ministers in France's new government line-up". Reuters. 21 September 2024. Archived from the original on 21 September 2024.
  2. ^ Victor Boiteau (20 May 2022). "Darmanin, Le Maire, Attal… Ces ministres qui remettent ça dans le gouvernement Borne". Libération (in French). Archived from the original on 20 May 2022.
  3. ^ Jean-Christophe Lalay (13 June 2016). "Qui est Sébastien Lecornu, le plus jeune membre du gouvernement ?". Ouest-France (in French). Archived from the original on 13 September 2024. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
  4. ^ Solenn de Roye; Elise Vincent (13 October 2024). "L'« énigme » Lecornu, seul ministre rescapé de la présidence Macron". Le Monde (in French). Archived from the original on 8 November 2024. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
  5. ^ Alexandre Lemarié (2 April 2015). "Sébastien Lecornu devient le benjamin des présidents départementaux" [Sébastien Lecornu becomes the youngest of the departmental presidents] (in French). Le Monde. Archived from the original on 5 April 2015. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  6. ^ Lucie Delaporte (15 November 2016). "In the Eure, the other face of Bruno Le Maire" (in French). Mediapart. Archived from the original on 15 November 2016. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  7. ^ LCI Editing (31 October 2017). "Five pro-Macron members, including Edouard Philippe, excluded by Les Républicains" (in French). LCI. Archived from the original on 1 November 2017. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  8. ^ Marcelo Wesfreid (2 February 2018). "Sébastien Lecornu, the "Mr. Government nuclear" (in French). Le Figaro. Archived from the original on 2 February 2018. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  9. ^ Laurent Philippot (16 October 2018). "Reshuffle: Sébastien Lecornu promoted to Minister of Local Authorities" (in French). France Bleu. Archived from the original on 20 May 2022. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  10. ^ "What you need to know about the national debate" (in French). Le Monde. 14 January 2019. Archived from the original on 14 January 2019. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  11. ^ John Irish (28 November 2021). "French minister heads to Caribbean territories to defuse tensions". Reuters. Archived from the original on 28 November 2021.
  12. ^ Christian Lowe (27 November 2021). "France says it is willing to discuss autonomy for Guadeloupe". Reuters. Archived from the original on 27 November 2021.
  13. ^ "Sénatoriales. Sébastien Lecornu rate son pari de grand chelem dans l'Eure". paris-normandie.fr (in French). 27 September 2020. Archived from the original on 30 September 2020. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
  14. ^ François Vignal (1 October 2020). "Pourquoi Sébastien Lecornu et Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne peuvent être sénateurs et ministres en même temps". publicsenat.fr (in French). Archived from the original on 3 October 2020. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  15. ^ Fabienne Marie (3 November 2020). "Eure. Le ministre Sébastien Lecornu démissionne du conseil municipal de Vernon". actu.fr (in French). Archived from the original on 12 April 2021. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  16. ^ "Vernon. Pourquoi Sébastien Lecornu a démissionné de son poste de conseiller municipal?". paris-normandie.fr (in French). 4 November 2020. Archived from the original on 28 June 2021. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  17. ^ "Départementales 2021. Dans le canton de Vernon, le ministre Sébastien Lecornu vire largement en tête". paris-normandie.fr (in French). 21 June 2021. Archived from the original on 24 June 2021. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
  18. ^ "Eure. Le ministre Sébastien Lecornu élu président du Département". actu.fr (in French). 1 July 2021. Archived from the original on 1 July 2021. Retrieved 1 July 2021..
  19. ^ "Sébastien Lecornu reprend la présidence de l'Eure". france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr (in French). 1 July 2021. Archived from the original on 1 July 2021. Retrieved 1 July 2021..
  20. ^ "Nouveau gouvernement : Sébastien Lecornu, un fidèle promu aux Armées". lefigaro.fr (in French). 20 May 2022. Archived from the original on 20 May 2022. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  21. ^ John Irish (13 July 2022). "Ahead of Mali withdraw, France prepares future Sahel strategy". Reuters. Archived from the original on 13 July 2022.
  22. ^ Barotte, Nicolas (28 December 2022). "Guerre en Ukraine: Sébastien Lecornu en visite à Kiev". Le Figaro. Archived from the original on 28 December 2022.
  23. ^ Dominique Vidalon (27 December 2022). "France to sell 2 observation satellites to Poland -minister". Reuters. Archived from the original on 27 December 2022.
  24. ^ Diego Chauvet (4 April 2023). "Budget historique pour la loi de programmation militaire". humanite.fr (in French). Archived from the original on 4 April 2023. Retrieved 12 April 2023.
  25. ^ "Guerre en Ukraine : Les Forges de Tarbes ont repris leur production de corps creux d'obus de 155 mm". ladepeche.fe. Archived from the original on 15 March 2024.
  26. ^ a b "Pourquoi la France est encore loin de passer en "économie de guerre"" (in French). 7 March 2024. Archived from the original on 7 March 2024.
  27. ^ Sabine Siebold; John Irish (11 July 2024). "Four European nations agree to jointly develop long-range cruise missiles". Reuters. Archived from the original on 11 July 2024.
  28. ^ "Sébastien Lecornu". defense.gouv.fr. Archived from the original on 3 June 2025. Retrieved 14 July 2022.
  29. ^ "Ordonnance Souveraine No. 10.188 du 17 novembre 2023 portant promotions ou nominations dans l'Ordre de Saint-Charles". Journal de Monaco (in French). 24 November 2023. Archived from the original on 24 November 2023. Retrieved 29 October 2024.
  30. ^ "Emmanuel Macron en Suède: les images du dîner d'État avec le roi Carl XVI et la reine Silvia". BFMTV (in French). Archived from the original on 31 January 2024. Retrieved 31 January 2024.
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