President Macron of France talks with political figures in an attempt to form a new government.
To name a new government, French President Emmanuel Macron consults with political parties.
According to the Elysée Palace, French President Emmanuel Macron will meet with important figures from the nation’s major political parties on Friday and Monday in an effort to “keep moving towards the broadest and most stable majority possible.”
Is dialogue a viable solution to France’s political crisis in the near future? Key political figures from different parties are invited by French President Emmanuel Macron, who had called for a “Olympic truce,” six weeks after the second round of legislative elections to discuss naming a future government and prime minister.
This Friday morning at the Elysée presidential palace, the consultations were inaugurated by the left-wing coalition New Popular Front (NFP), which secured the most seats in the parliamentary elections but fell short of achieving the 289-seat absolute majority.
Following her meeting with Macron, economist and civil servant Lucie Castets, the NFP’s candidate for prime minister, declared herself “ready” to “build a coalition” with other political parties.
Lucie Castets called out Macron’s “temptation that still seems present for the President to form his own government,” she told a group of reporters including Euronews.
Lucie Castets arrived on Friday morning for talks along with the left-wing coalition and ¨President Macron
Lucie Castets arrived on Friday morning for talks along with the left-wing coalition and ¨President MacronThibault Camus/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved.
Before the Paris Olympics, Macron had rejected Castets as a potential candidate to lead the nation’s future government which angered the left-wing coalition.
In the afternoon, Macron will receive his centrist bloc, followed by the conservative right-wing party “The Republican Right” (ex-LR).
Far-right leaders Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen from the National Rally party (RN) will be invited to the presidential palace on Monday morning.
Emmanuel Macron will confer with the leaders of the Senate and the National Assembly after these discussions.
A new prime minister will therefore not be appointed until Tuesday, said the Élysée Palace, without giving further details.
A united front?
Emmanuel Macron wants “a fair, sincere dialogue, and for these consultations to be useful to the country”, said his office.
Taking advantage of the fact that one hundred seats separate the NFP from an absolute majority, Macron seems to be ruling out the possibility of appointing Lucie Castets to try to create an alternative majority, for example with some of the right and moderate socialists.
Both the right and the far-right are threatening to bring down a left-wing government if ministers from the ranks of hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) are appointed.
The left-wing NFP coalition made up of France Unbowed, the Socialists, the Communists and the Greens assured that they are “ready to govern,” even without an absolute majority.
In a letter to the French, the NFP criticised “the president’s inaction”, which it deems “serious and dangerous”.
The different parties of the NFP do not have the same strategies and have been bickering since their creation after Macron dissolved parliament.
The France Unbowed party led by the firebrand Jean-Luc Mélénchon is threatening to start impeachment procedures if Macron refuses to appoint Lucie Castets as prime minister. A move that was criticised by the Socialist Party and the Greens.
Lucie Castets came 21st (out of 35 personalities) in a Harris Interactive poll commissioned by the French newspaper Challenges on 21 August.
According to Castets and the left-wing parties who have propelled her to prominence, the poll reflects that she is rather unknown to the general public, having never held a single mandate.
She garnered 17% of positive opinions, but 40% of those questioned said they “didn’t know her well enough to give an opinion.”
Far-right MEP Jordan Bardella came out as second favourite in the poll with 39%, followed by Xavier Bertrand (32%), a former right-wing minister.
According to the poll, 40% of those surveyed said they believe the outgoing Prime Minister Gabriel Attal is the best suited to continue leading the country’s government.
