What happened

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu resigned Monday, less than 24 hours after forming a cabinet to lead his country through a period of prolonged instability.

Lecornu, a close ally of French President Emmanuel Macron, was the country’s third prime minister to step down in the past year and had been in office for less than a month, making his the shortest-lived government in modern French history.

Who said what

“The conditions were not fulfilled for me to carry out my function as prime minister,” Lecornu said in a statement blaming “partisan appetites” for his rapid downfall. His resignation, which shocked France, “came amid turmoil over the composition of his cabinet, an uneasy coalition of centrists and conservatives,” The New York Times said.

The collapse of th

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