Sébastien Lecornu, a Catholic all in restraint?

Barely Sébastien Lecornu was appointed Prime Minister than one of his words, made in 2024 on the set of the show What an era! (France 2), were exhumed: “During a period of discernment, very intimate period, at the age of 16, I thought of being a monk.” It was at the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Wandrille (Eure), that the adolescent, raised in a practicing Catholic family, thought about taking the habit. Since then, he would continue to go there once a year, according to The echoes.

Can this intimate part, which the 39-year-old leader evokes with modesty, influence his way of exercising power? In any case, it seems to feed a broader reflection on the responsibilities of the State, including in fields as sensitive as nuclear deterrence, in which, when he was Minister of the Armed Forces, he asked for advice from Catholics to measure the moral implications.

This positioning resonates with the Gaullian inspiration that he claims: no erasure of the religious, but a demand for respectful neutrality. During the attacks of Charlie Hebdo And of the Bataclan, then president of the Departmental Council of Eure, he had expressed his attachment to the interreligious dialogue. “His sense of dialogue and living together, his concern that we do not amalgamal with the Muslim community, touched me,” says Father Jean Le Cam, then parish priest of Saint-Louis de Vernon.

On social issues, its positioning is more moving. Opposed to the wedding for all in 2012, “hostile to GPA and PMA” in 2015 according to his words in the press, he said in 2019 on France Info that he “would not have entered the government” if he had not agreed with the opening of the PMA for all. With regard to the law on the end of life or the registration of abortion in the Constitution, it did not give any public opinion.

A modest and discreet policy

Trained at the Catholic high school Saint-Adjutor de Vernon, Sébastien Lecornu joined the UMP from the year of his 16 years. “He was a brilliant student, interested in politics from high school,” says a former resident of Vernon. After having hesitated to integrate the army, the young man pursues studies of law in Assas. He then became a parliamentary assistant to Franck Gilard, UMP deputy for Eure.

At 28, he was elected mayor of Vernon, still in the same department. Minister of the Armed Forces in 2020, he is recognized for his control of files and his firmness budget. Among the policies that rubbed shoulders with him, we describe this very close to Emmanuel Macron as “discreet about his private life”, with a solid personality, “capable of understanding the strategic challenges of the current world”. But some people point out a difficulty in questioning themselves. “A faculty, however important in these troubled political times,” analyzes a parliamentarian.

This summer, parishioners of Saint-Louis de Vernon were able to see him during the mass of the parish priest. Always modest and discreet. It is now up to the one that some people nicknamed the “monk-soldier” to find a budget for France.