PARIS (AP) — French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu survived two votes of no-confidence Thursday that could have toppled his fragile new government and plunged France deeper into political chaos.

The National Assembly votes clear the way for the embattled Lecornu to pursue what could be an even greater challenge : getting a 2026 budget for the European Union’s second-largest economy through Parliament’s powerful but bitterly divided lower house before the end of the year.

Lecornu’s survival also spares any immediate need for President Emmanuel Macron to dissolve the National Assembly and call snap legislative elections, a hazardous option that the French leader took in 2024 and which he had signaled that he might take again if Lecornu fell.

One tight vote

Lecornu, a close al

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