• Macron reappoints last PM to resolve political crisis
• Hard left and far right angered by Macron’s choice.
• Crisis denting economic growth, central bank chief warns.

French President Emmanuel Macron reappointed Sebastien Lecornu as prime minister on Friday just days after he quit the job, a move that enraged some of the president’s fiercest political opponents who pledged to vote out the new government.

Macron, 47, will hope loyalist Lecornu can draw enough support from a deeply divided parliament to pass a 2026 budget. Faced with France’s worst political crisis in decades, many of Macron’s rivals have demanded he either call fresh parliamentary elections or resign.

The immediate reaction to Lecornu’s appointment from the far right and hard left was scathing, suggesting his second stint as prime minister will be no easier than his first, which ended on Monday when he resigned after just 27 days in office.

“The Lecornu II government, appointed by Emmanuel Macron who is more isolated and out of touch than ever at the Elysee Palace, is a bad joke, a democratic disgrace and a humiliation for the French people,” National Rally party president Jordan Bardella posted on X.

Lecornu’s priority is to pass a budget for 2026

There was no immediate reaction from the leadership of the Socialists and the conservative Republicans, both of whom will be crucial to Lecornu’s survival.

Lecornu’s most pressing task will be to deliver a budget to parliament by the end of Monday.

“I accept – out of duty – the mission entrusted to me by the President of the Republic to do everything possible to provide France with a budget by the end of the year and to address the daily life issues of our fellow citizens,” he wrote on X.

“We must put an end to this political crisis that exasperates the French people and to this instability that is harmful to France’s image and its interests.”

Lecornu added that whoever joined his government would have to renounce their personal ambitions to succeed Macron in 2027, a contest that has injected instability into France’s weak minority governments and fractious legislature. He pledged his cabinet would “embody renewal and diversity.”

Macron’s entourage said Lecornu had “carte blanche”, in a sign the president was leaving his prime minister plenty of wiggle room to negotiate a cabinet and budget.

Leftist parties upset with Macron

Macron earlier convened a meeting of mainstream party leaders to rally support around his choice, but angered leftist parties when they found out one of their own would not be named as prime minister.

Another collapsed government would raise the likelihood of Macron calling a snap election, a scenario seen benefiting the far right the most.

France’s political turmoil, which has dented growth and spooked financial markets, was in large part triggered by Macron’s decision last year to hold a legislative election, a gamble that delivered a hung parliament split between three ideologically opposed blocs.

The country’s push to get its finances in order, requiring budget cuts or tax hikes that no party can agree on, has only deepened the malaise.

If the National Assembly cannot find common ground on a budget in the time given, emergency legislation may be needed to keep the country running next year on a roll-over budget.

Fate of pension reforms is key issue

The country’s central bank chief, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, forecast on Friday that the current political uncertainty would cost the economy 0.2 percentage points of gross domestic product. Business sentiment was suffering but the economy was broadly fine, he said.

“Uncertainty is … the number one enemy of growth,” Villeroy told RTL radio.

Fraught budget negotiations have cost Macron three prime ministers in less than 12 months.

Central to the most recent budget negotiations have been the left’s desire to repeal Macron’s 2023 pension reforms that lifted the retirement age, and tax the wealthy more heavily. Those demands have been hard to square with the conservatives, whose support Macron also needs to pass a budget.

In Friday’s meeting, Macron offered to delay raising the retirement age as far as 64 by one year to 2028. Green leader Marine Tondelier described the concession as insufficient.

The deficit is forecast to hit 5.4% this year, nearly double the European Union’s cap. Lecornu recently said he envisaged a 2026 deficit between 4.7% – 5%.

• Agencies, including FBI, ATF, probing cause of explosion.
• Aerial footage shows debris and ashes across site.
• Company makes military,  demolition explosives.

Multiple people are dead and several others are unaccounted for after a blast in Tennessee at a military explosives company, CNN and other media outlets reported on Friday, citing local officials.

The explosion at Accurate Energetic Systems, about 50 miles (80 km) west of Nashville, occurred at 7:45am local time (1245 GMT), Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis told a press conference.

Davis said there were multiple fatalities, but it was still too early to know precisely how many people had perished, saying it was still possible there were some survivors.

When asked to describe the building where the blast occurred, Davis said, “There’s nothing to describe. It’s gone.”

Investigators from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were at the scene working to determine the cause of the explosion, Davis said.

Aerial video on CNN showed what appeared to be the footprint of where a building once stood. 

In an adjacent parking lot, debris and what appeared to be ashes were scattered among a few parked vehicles.

Efforts to contact the company were unsuccessful.

Accurate Energetic Systems develops, manufactures and stores explosives for “military, aerospace, and commercial demolition markets,” according to the company’s website. 

The 1,300-acre headquarters in Bucksnort, Tennessee, includes eight production buildings and a quality lab.

Hickman County Mayor Jim Bates told CNN that the plant did not have a history of safety problems, although a small ammunition explosion occurred there in 2014. 

That incident killed one person and injured three, according to The Tennessean newspaper.

The White House said on Friday it had begun mass layoffs of federal workers as President Donald Trump sought to amp up pressure on opposition Democrats to end a government shutdown that has crippled public services.

With the crisis set to go into a third week and no off-ramp in sight, Trump’s budget chief Russ Vought confirmed on social media that the administration had begun following through on its threat to begin firing some of the 750,000 public servants placed on enforced leave.

The Office of Management and Budget, headed by Vought, told AFP the layoffs would be “substantial,” but gave no precise numbers or details of which departments would be most affected.

The announcement came days after Trump said he was meeting Vought to determine which agencies “he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”

The president has repeatedly emphasised that he views cutbacks as a way of increasing pain on Democrats.

Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his House counterpart Hakeem Jeffries have dismissed the job cuts threat as an attempt at intimidation and said mass firings would not stand up in court.

Those public servants who hang onto their jobs still face the misery of going without pay while the crisis remains unresolved, with the standoff expected to drag on until at least the middle of next week.

Adding to the pain, 1.3 million active-duty service military personnel are set to miss their pay due next Wednesday— something that has not happened in any of the funding shutdowns through modern history.

“We´re not in a good mood here in the Capitol — it’s a sombre day. Today marks the first day federal workers across America will receive a partial paycheck,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a news conference marking the 10th day of the shutdown.

Rising tensions between the two parties have been on full display this week, with Johnson and Democratic senators clashing over the shutdown in front of the gathered press.

There was a fiery exchange after a House Democratic leadership press conference when Republican Congressman Mike Lawler needled Jeffries over his role in the crisis.

Jeffries told Lawler to “keep your mouth shut” as the two traded barbs and later called the Republican a “malignant clown.”

‘Tired of the chaos’

Nonessential government work stopped after the September 30 funding deadline, with Senate Democrats repeatedly blocking a Republican resolution to reopen federal agencies.

The sticking point has been a refusal by Republicans to include language in the bill to address expiring subsidies that make health insurance affordable for 24 million Americans.

With a prolonged shutdown looking more likely each day, members of Congress have been looking to Trump to step in and break the deadlock.

But the president has been largely tuned out, with his focus on the Gaza ceasefire deal and sending federal troops to bolster his mass deportation drive in Democratic-led cities such as Chicago and Portland.

“Donald Trump can find the time to play golf, but he can’t be bothered negotiating a bipartisan agreement to reopen the government… and House Republicans remain on vacation for three weeks,” Jeffries told a news conference.

“The American people are sick and tired of the chaos, crisis and confusion that has been visited upon the country by Donald Trump and Republican complete control of Congress.”

The Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS), meanwhile, announced it would delay publication of key inflation data due next week to October 24, despite the ongoing shutdown, which has halted the release of most government data.

The consumer price index data is being published to allow the Social Security Administration to meet its statutory deadlines “to ensure the accurate and timely payment of benefits,” the BLS said on Friday in a statement.