Breton accuses Von der Leyen of ‘questionable governance’ after France picks Séjourné

France has picked Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné as its new candidate for the next European Commission afiter its incumbent, Thierry Breton, abruptly quit on Monday with tough words for the re-elected Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.

It provied to be an unexpected twist in the highly political EU power transition that follows the June European elections, in which key jobs in the Commission, the EU’s powerful decision-making institutions, are shared out for the next five years.

Breton yesterday fired off a letter of resignation to Von der Leyen citing “questionable governance” at the EU executive.

Breton, who was in charge of the EU’s single market and industrial policy, announced his immediate resignation in a post on X on Monday morning.

In the letter, Breton complained that von der Leyen had asked Paris to withdraw his name “for personal reasons that in no instance you [von der Leyen] have discussed directly with me”.

Originally, member states who were to retain their commissioners were not required, as requested by von der Leyen, to nominate a female commissioner in her bid to have a gender-balanced team. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, had already appointed Breton to serve a second term as EU commissioner in June.

“In light of these recent developments – further testimony to questionable governance – I have to conclude that I can no longer exercise my duties,” Breton added.

Breton announced his resignation with a touch of theatricality, by posting on X an empty frame hanging on a wall. “Breaking news: my official portrait for the next European Commission term,” he wrote, with his resignation letter following in a separate post.

The appointment of von der Leyen’s top team is already running late. In seeking a more gender-balanced lineup, von der Leyen inadvertently triggered a political row in Slovenia after putting pressure on the government to withdraw a male candidate.

She is expected to reveal the next commission on Tuesday, even while the Slovenian parliament has not yet green-lighted the nomination of Marta Kos, works in Brussels as a senior advisor for the lobbying firm Kreab.

Breton was one of von der Leyen’s most high-profile commissioners, who sparred with US technology companies such as X and Meta over regulations to curb the harmful effects of the internet, and oversaw moves to increase EU production of ammunition in light of the war in Ukraine.

Hours after the news broke, France’s foreign minister, Stéphane Séjourné, was announced as his country’s commissioner nominee. A close ally of Macron who served as the leader of the centrist group in the European parliament, Séjourné has been put forward by Paris for a job involving EU industrial and competitiveness policy.

EU officials had expected Breton to serve a second mandate, taking on a weighty portfolio as an executive vice-president and one of the most senior members of von der Leyen’s team.

Breton, a former business executive, was not afraid to criticise his boss. He joined other senior colleagues last year in criticising von der Leyen’s decision to appoint a fellow German member of the Christian Democratic Union party to a senior role he was said to be less qualified for than others.

When von der Leyen was running for re-election this year, Breton questioned whether she should get a second term. “Is it possible to (re)entrust the management of Europe to the EPP for five more years?” he wrote on X after the centre-right European People’s party alliance gave von der Leyen an underwhelming majority when selecting her as their candidate. “The EPP itself does not seem to believe in its candidate,” he wrote.