At its core, the downfall of the Lecornu government was a catastrophic failure to communicate. The message sent by the new cabinet’s composition was so fatally flawed that it guaranteed the administration’s rejection before it could utter a single word about its policies.
In politics, symbolism is a powerful form of communication. The makeup of a new cabinet is one of the most potent symbolic messages a new government can send. It communicates its priorities, its values, and its entire political orientation.
The message sent by Lecornu’s “largely unchanged” cabinet was one of arrogance, continuity, and a disregard for the popular will for change. Whether intended or not, this is the message that was received loud and clear by the opposition and the public. It was a message of “more of the same” to a country crying out for something different.
This initial, disastrous communication set the tone for everything that followed. The government immediately lost the communications battle. It found itself unable to talk about its future plans because it was bogged down defending its symbolic past.
Lecornu’s resignation was the final admission of this communications failure. He was the head of a government whose very existence sent a message that was politically toxic. It serves as a brutal lesson that in the absence of a clear, compelling, and well-received message, a government cannot hope to survive.
