With the Paris Olympic Games, French President Emmanuel Macron has obtained a truce in the country’s tumultuous political life, which was at an impasse before the competitions began in the French capital.
Ten days after the end of the biggest sporting event on the planet, France is back to where it was before it began: with no prospect of appointing a prime minister capable of pacifying the disputes between the left, the center (Macron’s group) and the nationalist right.
The left-wing New Popular Front (NFP), made up of four parties, won the early parliamentary elections in France, held on June 30 and July 7, but did not obtain an absolute majority in the National Assembly (half the seats in the house, plus one).
As the NFP, Macron’s coalition, which came second in the election, and the right-wing nationalist party National Rally, which came third, are not in dialogue with each other, France is experiencing a political crisis, as any name that the president nominates to be prime minister and form the government will be subject to being overturned by a vote of no confidence in the National Assembly.
Just days before the Paris Olympics began, the NFP had nominated Lucie Castets, the finance director of Paris city hall, as its candidate for prime minister, after weeks of deadlock.
However, using the need for France to “focus” on the Olympic Games as a pretext, Macron rejected the nomination and said that in mid-August he would “appoint a prime minister with the broadest possible support”.
On Friday (23), the president will meet with party leaders to discuss names for the position of prime minister, and a chosen candidate should be announced next week.
However, the far left has already ruled out supporting any candidate other than Castets. In an article for the Tribune de Dimanche newspaper, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the France Insoumise party, called on the National Assembly to approve Macron’s impeachment if he does not nominate the NFP candidate, since, according to him, this would represent a nomination “without taking into account the results of the last elections.”
Interim Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said the impeachment threat was a manifestation of a “desire by the far left to plunge France into anarchy”.
On the nationalist right, the leader of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen, questioned in X the presence of Lucie Castets, requested by the NFP and which Macron did not veto, in the talks with the president on Friday.
“In what capacity does Lucie Castets intend to participate in Friday’s meeting at the Elysée Palace, bringing together party leaders and the presidents of the parliamentary groups of the National Assembly and the Senate?” Le Pen wrote.
“She is not a deputy, nor a party leader, nor a bloc president. She is imposed by the NFP minority coalition. It is a decision that amounts to a power grab,” he criticized.
The French press speculates that Macron plans to choose a name between the center-left and center-right for prime minister, to reduce the chances of rejection.
Among the names being considered are Xavier Bertrand, former Minister of Labor, Employment and Health under conservative Nicolas Sarkozy; socialist Bernard Cazeneuve, who was prime minister for a few months under François Hollande; Valérie Pécresse, the conservative candidate defeated in the 2022 presidential election; and socialist Karim Bouamrane, mayor of Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine, a city in the Paris region, who is a critic of France Insoumise, his party’s ally in the NFP, and who has been called the “Obama of the Seine.”
It remains to be seen whether any of them or any name outside that list will have the ability to survive politically after being nominated next week.
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