The aim is to convince the president that they are capable of governing France, of gathering a majority and of not being immediately overthrown by a vote of no confidence. Emmanuel Macron is starting a series of consultations with the heads of the political and parliamentary groups on Friday, with a view to appointing a prime minister. The discussions are taking place separately and will continue on Monday, seven weeks after the second round of the legislative elections, which left the country on the brink of deadlock with a parliament divided into three blocs, all far from a majority. The New Popular Front, the left-wing alliance formed to confront the far right, will be the first to meet the head of state, along with its candidate, Lucie Castets.
The prime minister, who the Elysée says will be appointed “in the course of these consultations and their conclusions,” will face a daunting task for France, where the coalition culture is not well established. Compromises, however, will be necessary to govern the country for at least a year, since new legislative elections cannot be called until June 2025. The last one, on July 7, further fragmented the political landscape, with three fairly equal blocs – the left in the lead, the centre-right a little behind and the far right in third place – although all far from the absolute majority of 289 seats.
French politics has been in turmoil ever since. There is no prime minister and a caretaker government, and the deadline for presenting the next budget is just around the corner. The New Popular Front, which brings together La France Insoumise [LFI, hermanada con el partido español Podemos]socialists, communists and ecologists, is calling for the next head of government to be appointed in accordance with political tradition. Its argument is that it has become the largest parliamentary group, with 193 deputies in the National Assembly, the lower house. Macron, on the other hand, does not see it that way. For him, no one won the elections and since there is no block with a majority, a majority coalition must be formed with deputies from the centre, the left and the moderate right.
The consultations that begin on Friday, the Elysée underlines, aim to determine which political forces will be able to guarantee what Macron asked for in mid-July in hisLetter to the French: a “solid majority”, that is to say stable, and “necessarily plural”, committed to principles such as the defence of the European Union. Macron, sources in the presidency insisted on Thursday, is now playing the role of arbiter and guarantor of the institutions.
Time is running out, especially for the upcoming budget, which will be reviewed by Parliament on 1 October. In recent days, pressure has been mounting, both in the opposition and among Macron’s allies and even in the media. “This prolonged lethargy, unprecedented in the Fifth Republic, cannot continue. Ministers occupy parliamentary seats in contravention of the Constitution. Voters have every right to feel that their democratic expression has been ignored,” warns an editorial in the French newspaper. The World.The end of uncertainty is now supposed to be ever closer.
Meetings in order
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The meetings will take place in order. Those with the most seats will go first. The president will first meet with representatives of the NFP and its candidate, Lucie Castets. Then it will be the turn of the presidential bloc (Macronists, Horizons party and MoDem), followed by the right-wing Les Républiques and the small regionalist and centrist LIOT group. The far-right National Rally (RN, 126 deputies) will meet with Macron on Monday, before the party of Eric Ciotti, the former president of the traditional French right who was expelled from the party in June for wanting to make a pact with Marine Le Pen.
What will Macron ask them? The Elysée has not detailed this point, but insists on the need for “stability”. In other words: that the prime minister and his government do not fall with the first vote of no confidence. In France there is no vote of investiture for the head of the executive. The prime minister, appointed by the president, governs unless a majority of the Assembly overthrows him. Both the right and the far right have already threatened to overthrow the NFP if it includes ministers from LFI, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party. And the leader has already ruled out naming Castets, the candidate of the united left, as prime minister.
“We are ready,” the coalition representatives wrote in a letter to the French people on Thursday. The letter is addressed to the entire population, including right-wing and far-right voters who did not vote for the NFP, and states that the alliance wants to “break with the logic of one camp against another.” “We are aware of this: we have to invent a new way of governing in the Fifth Republic,” they continue. In recent days, Castets, a 37-year-old senior civil servant at Paris City Hall, has multiplied her signs of openness. After LFI — the party with the most weight in the alliance — threatened to launch impeachment proceedings against Macron if he did not name her as prime minister, she tried to reassure: “My objective is not impeachment, it is cohabitation.”
The president is maintaining the suspense. Even after the break from the Paris Olympics, during which he called for a “truce”. A respite so that political parties and groups could clarify the situation. The conservatives of Les Républiques [LR, hermanados con el PP] At the end of July, they offered a “legislative pact” to the presidential coalition, with proposals that they consider to be priorities regarding immigration, security and public finances. The president of the LR group in the Assembly, Laurent Wauquiez, He excluded, however, a “government coalition”“We are independent and we will remain so,” insisted the politician, whose party won 47 seats. Together with the centrists (166) they would surpass the NFP, but would still be far from an absolute majority.
For the moment, uncertainty reigns. In recent weeks, names of possible candidates have emerged, such as Xavier Bertrand, the current conservative president of the Hauts-de-France region; Michel Barnier, former European Commissioner and EU Brexit negotiator; or even Valérie Pécresse, conservative president of the Paris region.
Also that of the socialist Karim Bouamrane, the mayor of the suburbde Saint-Ouen, who is very critical of LFI, like other minority movements within the Socialist Party, which have received some media coverage in recent days following the threat of dismissal of Mélenchon’s supporters. The mayor of the Parisian suburbs, however, has ruled out any contact with Macron on this subject. Another name being considered is that of Bernard Cazeneuve, former prime minister of the socialist François Hollande, who left the party in 2022, following his party’s agreement with LFI to create an alliance with environmentalists and communists.
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