As they get to know their new Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, a loyal ally of President Emmanuel Macron who had been remarkably low-key before taking one of the top jobs in the land, the French are also discovering that he has a somewhat unusual habit: He likes to butt heads. Instead of the greeting that many French use to say hello—two, and in some places even three or four, kisses on the cheeks—the 39-year-old former defense minister has been repeatedly spotted in his first days in office giving gentle head-butts to male colleagues.
Although not new, it's got French media talking—and digging into the prime minister's past before politics, when he toyed as a teenager with the idea of becoming a monk. Le Monde and other French publications say Lecornu's way of greeting people—mostly men, but sometimes women, too—with soft temple-to-temple bumps stems from time he spent at Saint-Wandrille Abbey, a community of about 30 Benedictine monks in the Normandy region northwest of Paris.
Lecornu, citing reasons both personal and professional, has said he finds it difficult to talk publicly about what attracted him to the possibility of joining them. "I don't like to talk about it, but it's true," he said, drawing a deep breath, when asked in 2024 on France's Television's Quelle époque! chat show whether it was accurate that he had considered becoming a Benedictine monk. The host, Léa Salamé, quickly followed up. "What moved you above all is the manner the monks have of greeting each other, forehead to forehead," she said.
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"Oh, not just that," replied the then-defense minister. "I had a moment in my adolescent life, a period of discernment, as we say, but which is a very intimate period. I don't really like talking about that because, for one, I represent the state as a minister and the state is neutral. And so I am a great defender of secularism."
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