Sébastien Lecornu (; born 11 June 1986) is a French politician who served as Minister of the Armed Forces in the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government ...

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

Élisabeth Borne Élisabeth Borne (; born 18 April 1961) is a French politician who has served as Prime Minister of France since May 2022. She is a member of President Emmanuel Macron's party Renaissance. A civil engineer, government official and manager of s ...

since 20 May 2022. A member of

La République En Marche! Renaissance (RE), previously known as La République En Marche ! (frequently abbreviated LREM, LaREM or REM; translated as "The Republic on the Move" or "Republic Forward"), or sometimes called simply En Marche ! () as its original name, is a ...

(LREM) since he left The Republicans (LR) in 2017, Lecornu was

President of the Departmental Council In France, the President of the Departmental Council (French: ''Président du Conseil départemental'') is the locally elected head of the departmental council, the assembly governing a department in France. The position is elected by the depar ...

Eure Eure () is a department in Normandy in Northwestern France, named after the river Eure. Its prefecture is Évreux. In 2019, Eure had a population of 599,507.Secretary of State to the Minister of the Ecological and Inclusive Transition (2017–2018) and Minister of Local Authorities (2018–2020) and as Minister of the Overseas (2020–2022).

Early life and education

A native of

Eaubonne Eaubonne () is a commune in the Val-d'Oise department, in the northern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. Population Twin towns It is twinned with Matlock, Derbyshire, England; Budenheim, Germany and Văleni ...

Val-d'Oise Val-d'Oise (, "Vale of the Oise") is a department in the Île-de-France region, Northern France. It was created in 1968 following the split of the Seine-et-Oise department. In 2019, Val-d'Oise had a population of 1,249,674.< ...

, he joined the

Union for a Popular Movement The Union for a Popular Movement (french: link=no, Union pour un mouvement populaire, ; UMP, ) was a centre-right political party in France that was one of the two major contemporary political parties in France along with the centre-left Soci ...

(UMP) in 2002 and studied at Panthéon-Assas University. In 2005, he became a parliamentary assistant to Franck Gilard, the member of the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the rep ...

for Eure's 5th constituency; Lecornu was, at the time, the youngest parliamentary assistant in the National Assembly. In 2008, he became an advisor to Secretary of State for European Affairs

Bruno Le Maire Bruno Le Maire (; born 15 April 1969) is a French politician and former diplomat who has served as Minister of the Economy and Finance since 2017 under President Emmanuel Macron. A former member of The Republicans (LR), which he left in 2017 to ...

; at age 22 Lecornu was the youngest advisor to an official in the government of Prime Minister

François Fillon François Charles Armand Fillon (; born 4 March 1954) is a retired French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 2007 to 2012 under President Nicolas Sarkozy. He was the nominee of the Republicans (previously known as the Unio ...

. He is a member of the

National Gendarmerie The National Gendarmerie (french: Gendarmerie nationale, ) is one of two national law enforcement forces of France, along with the National Police (France), National Police. The Gendarmerie is a branch of the French Armed Forces placed under the ...

operational reserve with the rank of lieutenant. He was appointed colonel as a reserve specialist in the fall of 2017.

Political career

Career in local politics

In the 2014 municipal election, Lecornu was elected Mayor of Vernon. The combination of two executive mandates being incompatible, he abandoned the town hall of Vernon on 4 December 2015. Following the 2015 departmental elections in which he was elected councillor for the canton of Vernon alongside Catherine Delalande, Lecornu became

Eure Eure () is a department in Normandy in Northwestern France, named after the river Eure. Its prefecture is Évreux. In 2019, Eure had a population of 599,507.Mediapart ''Mediapart'' is an independent French investigative online newspaper created in 2008 by Edwy Plenel, former editor-in-chief of ''Le Monde''. ''Mediapart'' is published in French, English and Spanish. ''Mediapart's'' income is solely derive ...

points out that the hunt for

RSA RSA may refer to: Organizations Academia and education * Rabbinical Seminary of America, a yeshiva in New York City *Regional Science Association International (formerly the Regional Science Association), a US-based learned society *Renaissance S ...

fraudsters has been - with great communication support - the flagship policy pursued by the department since the arrival of Lecornu. It is also closing two priority education colleges, which it justifies by their low occupancy rates.

Secretary of State

In 2017, Lecornu was appointed to be a Secretary of State to the Minister for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition by President

Emmanuel Macron Emmanuel Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France since 2017 French presidential election, 2017. ''Ex officio'', he is also one of the two Co-Princes of Andorra. Prior to his presidency, M ...

. Lecornu was then suspended from his duties within The Republicans by the party and disciplinary exclusion proceedings were brought against him. He was excluded from LR on 31 October 2017, with Gérald Darmanin, also a member of the government, and the member of the

Franck Riester Franck Riester (born 3 January 1974) is a French politician who has been serving as Minister Delegate for Parliamentary Relations in the Government of Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne since July 2022. He previously served as Minister Delegate fo ...

and Thierry Solère. He then joined

Nicolas Hulot Nicolas Jacques André Hulot (; born 30 April 1955) is a French journalist and environmental activist. He is the founder and honorary president of the Nicolas Hulot Foundation, an environmental group established in 1990. Hulot ran as a candida ...

delegated issues related to energy in general to Lecornu. In particular, he was entrusted with several sensitive files such as the closure of the

Fessenheim Nuclear Power Plant The Fessenheim Nuclear Power Plant is located in the Fessenheim commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France, north east of the Mulhouse urban area, within of the border with Germany, and approximately from Switzer ...

, the opening of the Flamanville's EPR, or the Cigeo nuclear waste landfill project in Bure.

Minister of Local Authorities

On 16 October 2018, Lecornu was appointed Minister of Local Authorities to the Minister of Territorial Cohesion and Relations with Local Authorities, Jacqueline Gourault. On 14 January 2019, Lecornu was appointed with Emmanuelle Wargon to lead the "great national debate", organised in order to get out of the crisis caused by the

yellow vests movement The Yellow Vests Protests or Yellow Jackets Protests or Yellow Vests Revolution (french: Mouvement des gilets jaunes, ) are a series of Populism, populist, grassroots weekly protests in France that began on 17 November 2018. At first the protes ...

Minister of the Overseas

On 6 July 2020, Lecornu was appointed Minister of the Overseas in the

Castex government The Castex government (French: ''Gouvernement Castex'') was the forty-second government of the French Fifth Republic, formed on 3 July 2020 and headed by Jean Castex as Prime Minister under the presidency of Emmanuel Macron. It was dissolved o ...

. In this capacity, he held crisis talks on the French Caribbean territory of

Guadeloupe Guadeloupe (; ; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Gwadloup, ) is an archipelago and overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands— Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galante, La Désirade, and the ...

in late 2021, in an effort to defuse tensions amid unrest stemming from the government's handling of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

there. He also announced that France would be willing to discuss autonomy for Guadeloupe.

Minister of the Armed Forces

On 20 May 2022, Lecornu was appointed Minister of the Armed Forces in the

Borne government The Borne government is the forty-third government of the French Fifth Republic, formed on 16 May 2022 and headed by Élisabeth Borne as Prime Minister under the presidency of Emmanuel Macron. Context Formation On 16 May 2022, Jean Cast ...

. Early in his tenure, Lecornu and Minister of Foreign Affairs

Catherine Colonna Catherine Colonna ( (born 16 April 1956) is a French diplomat and politician who serves as Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs in the government of Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne since 20 May 2022. Colonna previously served as Ambassad ...

travelled to Niger together to seal a regional redeployment, mak