The countdown to the appointment of a prime minister in France has begun. President Emmanuel Macron opened the first round of political consultations on Friday to appoint a new government, almost two months after the early legislative elections. During the meetings, the candidate of the left-wing alliance New Popular Front (NFP), Lucie Castets, said she was ready to “build coalitions” to guarantee the “stability” of the country. But both the outgoing prime minister, Gabriel Attal, and the president of the conservatives in the Assembly, Laurent Wauquiez, stressed that their groups would censure an executive with members of La France Insoumise, the radical left party that has the most weight in the NFP.
The round of consultations will continue on Monday with the leaders of the far-right National Rally (RN) and with 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 the leader of the RN, Marine Le Pen. The talks, said the Elysée, allow for an “assessment” before the appointment of a prime minister, “in the course of these consultations and their conclusions”. The meetings, for the moment, have been a way of taking the temperature and, above all, confirming the positions of the various political forces.
The NFP, formed by La France Insoumise [LFI, hermanada con el partido español Podemos]socialists, communists and ecologists, claims the right to appoint the prime minister and thus form the new executive. The alliance came out on top after the election, with 193 of the 577 seats in the Assembly, the lower house of parliament. It was followed by Macron’s alliance with 166 deputies and Le Pen’s RN with 126, although it was the one that received the most votes. Neither obtained an absolute majority, set at 289 seats. The goal now is to break the deadlock, which threatens to leave the country in limbo. New legislative elections cannot be called for another year.
“I am ready to build coalitions, to discuss with other political forces to try to find a way to guarantee the stability of the country and to respond to the urgent needs” of the French people, said Lucie Castets, the left-wing candidate for prime minister, after the meeting with Macron. The leaders of the four political groups in the alliance also took part in the meeting with the president. In the Elysée gardens, the 37-year-old senior official said that Macron seemed “lucid” about the “desire for a change of political direction” after the legislative elections. But she also said that it seemed to her that the president was still tempted “to compose his government”, that is, without taking the NFP into account.
Macron acknowledged that “the stability that he himself is calling for does not mean the continuation of the policy followed until now by the head of state himself,” added Olivier Faure, the first secretary of the Socialist Party. The president has so far ruled out appointing Castets, since he believes that no one has won the elections. What he is advocating is the formation of a majority coalition with deputies from the centre, the left and the moderate right.
Motion of censure?
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After receiving representatives of the NFP, the president met with those of the presidential bloc (Macronists, Horizons and MoDem) and with the right wing of Les Républiques (LR). The outgoing Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, defended the nomination of a Prime Minister “who does not come from the parties of the central bloc” and called for a Government that “represents a broad spectrum of sensibilities, from the left to the republican right”, according to a message sent to the deputies of his group and reported by local media. He also announced that his group would vote for an immediate motion of censure against an Executive with ministers from LFI.
In France, there is no vote of confidence for the head of the executive. The prime minister, appointed by the president, governs unless a majority in the Assembly overthrows him. LR, which won 47 seats, shares Attal’s position. Conservative MPs will vote “a motion of censure immediately” against a government that includes Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party, insisted Wauquiez after the meeting. “They are dangerous for the Republic. The values of LFI are in breach of the founding values of the French Republic,” he said.
At the end of July, his party offered a “legislative pact” to the presidential coalition, but refused to form a “government coalition”. “We do not intend to be systematic opponents, because the country needs to continue to move forward,” but “we will not participate in any government coalition,” the group’s president reminded the Assembly on Friday.
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