Tag Archives: France

Francium Decay

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It was announced today that Sébastien Lecornu was resigning as Prime Minister of France, having only taken up that office on 9th September. He hasn’t technically left office yet as he remains in a caretaker capacity until a successor can be found, but even if he lasts another three weeks like this his tenure will be shorter than Liz Truss’s in Britain.

Changing heads of government repeatedly in a short time is generally regarded as a symptom of a country’s political instability. I had a go at comparing France to some other countries — not all of them, obviously, nor is this sample chosen according to any particular principle — to see how bad things really are.

I think ten years is a long enough period from which to make a fair assessment, so I have listed all the people to have held the equivalent office in the period beginning 6th October 2015 and ending 6th October 2025. Dates of appointment are listed in brackets.

Nine

France

  1. Manuel Valls (31/03/2014)
  2. Bernard Cazeneuve (06/12/2016)
  3. Édouard Philippe (15/05/2017)
  4. Jean Castex (03/07/2020)
  5. Élizabeth Borne (16/05/2022)
  6. Gabriel Attal (09/01/2024)
  7. Michel Barnier (05/09/2024)
  8. François Bayrou (13/12/2024)
  9. Sébastien Lecornu (09/09/2025)

Six

Britain

  1. David Cameron (11/05/2010)
  2. Theresa May (13/07/2016)
  3. Boris Johnson (24/07/2019)
  4. Liz Truss (08/09/2022)
  5. Rishi Sunak (25/10/2022)
  6. Sir Keir Starmer (05/07/2024)

Five

Italy

  1. Matteo Renzi (22/02/2014)
  2. Paolo Gentiloni (12/12/2016)
  3. Giuseppe Conte (01/06/2018)
  4. Mario Draghi (13/02/2021)
  5. Giorgia Meloni (22/10/2022)

New Zealand

  1. John Key (19/11/2008)
  2. Bill English (15/12/2016)
  3. Jacinda Ardern (26/10/2017)
  4. Christopher Hipkins (25/01/2023)
  5. Christopher Luxon (27/11/2023)

Ukraine

  1. Arseniy Yatsenyuk (27/02/2014)
  2. Volodymyr Groysman (14/04/2016)
  3. Oleksiy Honcharuk (29/08/2019)
  4. Denys Shmyhal (04/03/2026)
  5. Yulia Svyrydenko (17/07/2025)

Four

Belgium

  1. Charles Michel (11/10/2014)
  2. Sophie Wilmès (27/10/2019)
  3. Alexander de Croo (01/10/2020)
  4. Bart de Wever (03/02/2025)

Three

Australia

  1. Malcolm Turnbull (15/09/2015)
  2. Scott Morrison (24/08/2018)
  3. Anthony Albanese (23/05/2022)

Canada

  1. Stephen Harper (06/02/2006)
  2. Justin Trudeau (04/11/2015)
  3. Mark Carney (14/03/2025)

Germany

  1. Angela Merkel (22/11/2005)
  2. Olaf Scholz (08/12/2021)
  3. Friedrich Merz (06/05/2025)

Israel

  1. Benjamin Netanyahu (31/12/2009 and 29/12/2022)
  2. Natfali Bennett (13/06/2021)
  3. Yair Lapid (01/07/2022)

Two

Luxembourg

  1. Xavier Bettel (04/12/2013)
  2. Luc Frieden (17/11/2023)

Russia

  1. Dmitry Medvedev (08/05/2012)
  2. Mikhail Mishustin (16/01/2020)

Spain

  1. Mariano Rajoy (21/12/2011)
  2. Pedro Sanchéz (02/06/2018)

The winner is Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, where Ralph Gonsalves has been Prime Minister since 29th March 2001.

As you can see, France is indeed doing rather badly in terms of minister retention. Britain isn’t exactly doing well either. I was a little surprised to see Australia, Canada and Germany all tied, given that the former is infamous for cycling its leaders and the latter respected for retaining them. Scholz has clearly let the side down by only lasting one term while Tony Abbot quit early enough to miss out on being counted here. Stephen Harper is only just barely included for Canada as the general election which would see him ousted was already ongoing.

The Premier and the Palace

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Dammit, Mark, look forward!

Yesterday Mark Carney made his first international trips as Prime Minister of Canada, visiting first France and then Britain. He held bilateral talks with Emmanuel Macron and Sir Keir Starmer, as well as an audience with Charles III.

The meeting with Starmer was snapped by Downing Street photographers and uploaded on Flickr. I have already copied them to Wikimedia Commons. These appear to be the first free-licence photographs of Carney’s premiership, as Canada’s own government’s policy on official copyright is some way behind Britain’s.

The conversation at Buckingham Palace had among the strangest opening exchanges I’ve heard from any of these:

  • Bit of a disaster today sir. My Order of Canada pin broke.
  • Oh.
  • Yes. It fell on the tarmac… which is proof that (among) our founding people (are) the British.
  • Do you want mine?
  • I’m not of that rank.

Obviously, the more substantive discussion in all cases was kept off-camera.

Lest it be forgotten that the royals have other duties, today the Palace revealed more detail about Their Majesties’ state visits to Italy and the Vatican, ending speculation that the latter would be postponed due to the Pope’s recent hospitalisation. The press release explicitly states that there will be an audience with Francis, but it tactfully does not specify where said audience will take place. It would be an interesting (if also tragic) subversion of the concept of a state visit if the host head of state was not actually in his home state at the time of the meeting.