French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has stepped down, blaming deep divisions in parliament where parties acted “as if they all had an absolute majority”. His departure comes less than a month after taking office, throwing France into renewed political uncertainty.

France’s Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has resigned, less than a day after his cabinet was unveiled.

“The conditions were not fulfilled for me to carry on as prime minister,” Lecornu said on Monday morning, and criticised the unwillingness by political parties to reach compromises.

The Elysée palace made the announcement after Lecornu met President Emmanuel Macron for an hour on Monday morning.

The shock move comes only 26 days after Lecornu was appointed prime minister following the collapse of the previous government of François Bayrou.

Parties across the board in the National Assembly had fiercely criticised the composition of Lecornu’s cabinet, which was largely unchanged from Bayrou’s, and threatened to vote it down.

Several parties are now clamouring for early elections, with some calling for Macron to resign too – although he has always said he will not stand down before his term ends in 2027.

“The only wise thing to do now is to hold elections,” said Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally (RN).

“The joke’s gone on long enough. French people are fed up. Macron has put the country in an extremely difficult position,” she added.

Lecornu – the former armed forces minister and a Macron loyalist – was France’s fifth prime minister in under two years.

In his brief speech outside the Hôtel de Matignon, the prime minister’s residence, which he only occupied for less than a month, Lecornu sharply criticised the “partisan appetites” of political factions, who he said “are all behaving as if they had an absolute majority”.

“I was ready for compromise but all parties wanted the other party to adopt their programmes in their entirety,” he said.

“It wouldn’t need much for this to work,” he added, saying, however, that parties needed to be more humble and “to cast some egos aside”.

French politics has been highly unstable since July 2024, when snap parliamentary elections resulted in a hung parliament.

This has made it difficult for any prime minister to garner the necessary support to pass any bills.

Bayrou’s government was voted down in September after the French parliament refused to back his austerity budget, which aimed to slash government spending by €44bn ($51bn; £38bn).

France’s deficit reached 5.8% of its GDP in 2024 and its national debt is 114% of its GDP. That is the third highest public debt in the eurozone after Greece and Italy, and equivalent to almost €50,000 per French citizen.

Stocks fell sharply on the Paris exchange after the news of Lecornu’s resignation broke on Monday morning.

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Pukpuk treaty commits the two neighbours to greater military cooperation, although the text is yet to be released.

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea (PNG) James Marape have signed a mutual defence treaty in Canberra, with the leaders saying the text of the agreement will be available soon.

Marape told reporters on Monday in the Australian capital that the treaty was drawn up “out of geography, history and the enduring reality of our shared neighbourhood”.

“It is about one bigger fence that secures two houses that has its own yard space,” Marape said, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

The Papua New Guinean leader disagreed that the pact was drawn up due to broader geopolitical issues, in an apparent reference to the military interests of countries like China and the United States in the Pacific region.

“This treaty was not conceived out of geopolitics or any other reason,” Marape said.

“We maintain friendships to all enemies, we advocate peace wherever we engage, in as far as foreign relations concern,” PNG’s leader added.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that the treaty “makes very explicit” that there will be “interoperability” between the two neighbouring countries’ “defence assets”, adding that “our greatest asset is our people”.

The ABC reported that this meant the two countries would share the same rights as current members of the Five Eyes agreement, which Australia shares with Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the US.

Marape’s office said last week that the agreement will create a path for 10,000 Papua New Guineans to serve in the Australian Defence Force, as his country also aims to build up its own defence force to 7,000 troops.

Papua New Guinea has a population of some 12 million people, of which about 40 percent live below the poverty line, in stark contrast to its richer neighbour, Australia.

The signing of the Pukpuk treaty comes weeks after Papua New Guinea celebrated 50 years of independence from Australia, which assumed control of its northern neighbour as a colonial power in 1902, after both countries were colonised by the UK.

In August 2013, Australia signed a memorandum of understanding with Papua New Guinea, which saw thousands of migrants arriving in Australia by boat detained on Manus Island in offshore detention.

The controversial detention centre closed in 2017, leaving hundreds of refugees stranded.

Australia is also seeking to sign a security agreement with Fiji, after a similar agreement covering both security and climate change with Vanuatu stalled last month.

Australia also recently signed a landmark treaty with Tuvalu, the world’s first agreement offering visas to help people facing displacement due to the climate crisis to resettle.

Climate change remains a key security concern for many countries in the region, with Australia bidding to host the 2026 UN COP climate change meeting, alongside its Pacific neighbours.

The bid has yet to materialise as Turkiye is also formally campaigning to host the same meeting.