French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has survived two confidence motions, just days after he appointed his new government in time to submit a draft budget to parliament in a bid to end the political turmoil that has gripped the country for months.

A motion sponsored by Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and its allies was defeated on Thursday, receiving the backing of just 144 lawmakers in the 577-seat National Assembly.

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Just moments before, a motion tabled by far-left France Unbowed gained support from 271 lawmakers, 18 short of the 289 needed for a majority.

The votes followed Lecornu’s decision Tuesday to back suspending a divisive 2023 pension reform, in a bid to keep his cabinet afloat long enough to pass the much-needed 2026 austerity budget by the end of this year.

The leftist Socialist Party (PS) had threatened to vote to topple the premier if he did not move to freeze the reform that would raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.

After the motions failed to pass, PS lawmaker Laurent Baumel warned that sparing the premier “was in no way a pact” for the future, urging “new concessions” in the looming budget talks.

Yael Braun-Pivet, president of the National Assembly and an ally of Macron, had a more positive outlook following the votes.

“I am pleased to see that today there is a majority in the National Assembly that is operating in this spirit: Work, the search for compromise, the best possible effort.”

Lecornu, who at the time of his first appointment last month was France‘s fifth prime minister in less than two years, must now steer a cost-cutting budget through a deeply divided parliament before the end of the year, in what is expected to be a bruising fight.

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The confidence votes followed a dramatic two weeks in French politics.

This vote marks a reprieve, “but he [Lecornu] is far from out of the woods yet because he has a very challenging few weeks ahead of him,” said Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler, reporting from Paris.

Lecornu now “has to try to push through a budget … that is going to please all sides of the House and for now, he’s dealing with a government that has no majority so he’s relying on [individual] MPs”, said Butler.

“But as we’ve seen, there are MPs who are on the far-right, the far-left and in between who simply want to bring him down, as they say his policies are simply continuations of the French president. They are calling for new elections and they certainly don’t want to see Lecornu succeed.”

Lecornu resigned last Monday after criticism of his first cabinet, only to be reappointed days later and unveil a reshuffled team in time to submit a draft budget to parliament.

Under pressure from the European Union to rein in its deficit and debt, France faces an uphill battle over cost-cutting measures that felled Lecornu’s two predecessors.

France’s debt-to-GDP (gross domestic product) ratio is the EU’s third-highest after Greece and Italy, and is close to twice the bloc’s 60 percent ceiling.

Lecornu has pledged not to invoke a constitutional tool used to push through every budget without a vote since 2022 and pledged to put all bills to debate.

“The government will make suggestions, we will debate, and you will vote,” the 39-year-old Macron loyalist emphasised in a speech to lawmakers Tuesday.

But the opposition has challenged his optimism.

Le Pen accused lawmakers of granting Lecornu a reprieve out of “terror of elections”, saying she was waiting with “growing impatience” for Parliament’s dissolution.

The far right sees its best chance yet to take power in the 2027 presidential race, when Macron’s second and final term ends.

This vote is “something of a reprieve” for Macron as well, said Butler, as “for the moment at least, his government survives.

“That’s more than we can say of the picture that has been painted here [in France] over the last few months, as we’ve seen one prime minister after another in government collapse.”

If Lecornu’s government were to fall in the coming weeks, “many say Macron will be under pressure to dissolve Parliament and call elections, which would likely favour the far-right, so it’s certainly something the French president would like to avoid,” said Butler.

The political turmoil has also deeply affected Macron’s image both domestically, “where he is very fragile”, and internationally, said Butler, referring to when United States President Donald Trump “poked fun at President Macron” while in Egypt earlier in the week to join other world leaders in signing the Gaza war ceasefire deal.

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French politics has been deadlocked ever since Macron gambled last year on snap polls that he hoped would consolidate power – but ended instead in a hung Parliament and more seats for the far right.