LIVE - Lecornu's first trip following the downgrade of France's sovereign rating

For the president of the Occitanie region, Carole Delga (PS), "no left-wing leader has a vocation to enter this government," she explains in an interview with La Dépêche . "This would be due to the illegibility of the political fact. The President has appointed a right-wing prime minister who will form a government with right-wing personalities," according to her. If Sébastien Lecornu, the new prime minister, was indeed on the right, he left Les Républicains in 2017.

"Sébastien Lecornu will only last if he measures the exasperation and initiates real change. Otherwise, he will be swept away," she predicts. Carole Delga is not asking for another dissolution, but "doesn't fear it either." "What I am asking is for the 2024 vote, which took place barely fourteen months ago, to be respected. But if there is a dissolution, I am not afraid of elections. True political strength is not the number of deputies. It is freedom, fidelity to one's convictions."

For former minister and current president of the MoDem group in the National Assembly, Marc Fesneau , the downgrade of France's sovereign rating is a "serious signal." "Borrowing will cost more, our credibility is eroding and we are losing sovereignty," he summarized in an X publication. "France, the second largest power in the Eurozone, now pays its creditors more than all its neighbors."

"The downgrade of France's rating by Fitch risks costing the French dearly," warned the president of the Île-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse, in a publication on X. "We urgently need a budget to restore the state's finances, with a real reduction in spending, which is not censored," she demanded, while the previous budget had been censored by the deputies and François Bayrou lost a vote of confidence shortly after presenting a budget.

"Demagoguery and electoralism would cause a massive crisis of confidence among investors in France, a surge in interest rates and the debt burden," she said.

"A risk of spiralling debt costs, but also and above all a real humiliation for the country. The disastrous result of 13 years of Hollande-Macronism," summed up the former president of the Republicans, Éric Ciotti.

The mayor of Cannes, David Lisnard , did not mince his words in the face of the downgrade of France's sovereign rating by the Fitch agency: "It is the confirmation of a financial and budgetary reality already anticipated by the markets (and by François Bayrou, who preferred to sabotage his government before the axe fell)."

The president of the New Energy Movement also noted that this decision is the "result of years of uncontrolled public spending, an obese State and a power incapable of reforming itself" , before proposing a solution: "to regain the triple A, we will have to put an end to the triple S: Socialism, Over-regulation, Tax spoliation" .

For Nicolas Dupont-Aignan , a regular sovereignist candidate for the presidential office, the downgrade of France's sovereign rating by the Fitch agency is "the symbol of a historic decline caused by the incompetence of our leaders." "We are now relegated to the level of... Estonia and Malta!" he laments. "It is urgent to straighten out the Nation," he adds in an X publication.

The chairman of the National Assembly's Finance Committee published a statement on the social network X, announcing the downgrade of France's sovereign rating.

" If the next government also chooses to rely on the markets to impose austerity, it is heading for the catastrophe it itself announced and will lead the country ever further into economic, social and ecological crisis," he declared.

The Fitch rating agency downgraded France's sovereign rating to A+ on Friday evening , penalizing the country for its persistent political instability and budgetary uncertainties that are hampering the clean-up of its very degraded public accounts.

Pointing to the " increasing fragmentation and polarization" of politics, Fitch said in a statement that " this instability weakens the political system's ability to implement large-scale fiscal consolidation ."

It considers it unlikely that the public deficit will be brought below 3% of GDP by 2029, as the outgoing government had hoped to do to bring France back into line with European standards. The outgoing Minister of the Economy, Éric Lombard , said he had "taken note " of the agency's decision.

The former Prime Minister reacted on X to Fitch's decision to downgrade France's sovereign rating from AA- to A+ on Friday: "A country that its "elites" lead to reject the truth is condemned to pay the price."

Also read: "Rating is not an exact science": how do Fitch, Moody's or S&P assess the financial strength of states?

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Sébastien Lecornu is traveling to Mâcon on Saturday for his first visit as Prime Minister, taking a few hours off the consultations he is actively conducting in Paris before forming a government. Barely four days after his appointment, the new and young (39-year-old) occupant of Matignon is going to meet the French people for whom he still remains an unknown quantity. He will notably meet with employees of a health center in the Saône-et-Loire prefecture whose goal is to improve access to care.

For him, it is a matter of convincing public opinion as much as the political forces of the merits of his method: finding common ground, particularly on the budget, allowing him to govern without a majority. Himself a local elected official from Eure, where he was mayor, department president and senator, this son of a medical secretary and an aeronautics technician had assured from the evening of his nomination that he " measured the expectations " of his fellow citizens and "the difficulties " they encountered.

Also read Guillaume Tabard: “The proper use of “breakup” for Sébastien Lecornu”

Today we are following the first visit of Sébastien Lecornu , the new Prime Minister. The trip will focus on health, but the downgrade of the sovereign rating by the Fitch rating agency, from AA- to A+, will be on everyone's minds.