The president thinks about the legislative and focuses on the Minister of Labor. Young people and women are targeted, to avoid ending up hostage by Sarkozy
The worst actually starts now for Emmanuel Macron. Elected with 58.5% of the votes in the ballot, but thanks above all to those who wanted to block the path to Marine Le Pen, the president must prove that he will change the register and listen to the requests of the most popular electorate (also to remove the threat looming, new yellow vest-style social protests). In practice, the appointment of a new prime minister (probably a woman) and a new government await him. And the preparation of alliances for the legislative elections, which will be held in June: they increasingly appear to him as a “third round” of the presidential elections.
The first step will be to choose the premier. The current one, Jean Castex, a technician, faithful servant of the state (and especially of Macron), should remain in office until the beginning of May. The replacement can only be appointed after Macron’s investiture, which is expected no later than May 14. Generally it happens immediately after, tambur battente, but, according to sources close to the Elysée, it is not excluded that Macron will wait even after the legislative (two shifts, scheduled for 12 and 19 June). Or he will proceed with the nomination in May, so that the new prime minister can embody a blueprint for the elections.
The choice will be important: Macron thinks of someone with a left-wing sensitivity, not to forget that he, in the second round, won also thanks to 42% of the voters, who in the first round had chosen the leader of the radical left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon (only 17% of its voters preferred Marine Le Pen). For now, two names are circulating in Paris: Julien Denormandie, 41, a former good boy face typical of the macronist nomenclature, now Minister of Agriculture, who worked extensively in public administration, especially during the term of François Hollande. And then Élisabeth Borne, 61, a long career as a senior public official, often in the service of socialist ministers, converted to macronism as early as 2017 (she is now Minister of Labor). Between the two she would be the favorite, because she is a woman (Macron is too criticized for having a narrow circle of advisors and faithful only strictly male). But it seems that the president, with respect to the Borne option, would prefer someone who, to the experience in the administration of the state, also associates one in the local authorities, with an elective role.
As he goes in search of the “rare pearl”, Macron prepares for the legislative elections. In 2017 they had taken place after the presidential elections and he had managed to secure an absolute majority with the deputies elected on the lists of his party, the République en Marche (Lrem), to which were added those of the Modem, the centrist (and ally) by François Bayrou. In the last five years Lrem has failed to take root in the territory and has remained an empty box. Alone, but also with Modem, this time he will not be able to obtain the majority of seats. And so Macron is looking for allies, with the aim of making common lists. One is the new Horizons party, created by its former premier, Edouard Philippe, a very popular politician, who has already promised him his support (but with an independence of spirit). It comes from the social and centrist tendency of the Republicans, the moderate and neo-Gaullist right. Macron also aims to blow up this party, which is in crisis but well rooted locally (today it can count on a hundred deputies). Nicolas Sarkozy is working behind the scenes to ferry as many members of the team as possible to Macron.
It will be necessary to see if this delicate operation of gathering a new coalition around the president will be successful. A center-right (and above all right) coalition is on the horizon, in contradiction with the social and “left” tendency that Macron would have to marry in order to reconnect with a popular electorate. Not to mention that Philippe and Sarkozy are temperamentally incompatible and also politically (Sarkozy represents the hard wing of the Republicans). Meanwhile, something is also moving on the left, where Mélenchon is negotiating with the other components of the left (ecologists, communists and now even the socialists) with the aim of establishing common lists for the legislative ones. The leader of France insoumise even hopes to become prime minister, a prospect that he knows a bit of political fiction. But a strong presence in the parliament of this coalition could further disrupt Macron’s policy in the coming years.
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