Photo: Alain Jocard Pool via Agence France-Presse French President Emmanuel Macron at a ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Paris police headquarters on August 12.
Baptiste Pace – Agence France-Presse in Paris
Published at 9:13 am
- Europe
Containing the left-wing coalition of the New Popular Front, appointing a prime minister, forming a government, preparing for the start of the school year, the budget… Accused of procrastination, Emmanuel Macron, who is receiving the political forces from Friday, is expected to deliver, six weeks after the election of a majority born from his dissolution.
The French president, who had invoked a “political truce” during the Olympic Games (July 26-August 11), let the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of Provence pass before summoning political and parliamentary leaders to the Élysée, as the Paralympic Games (August 28-September 8) approach.
Will France Know Its New Prime Minister Next Week? ? More than six weeks after the second round of the legislative elections, Gabriel Attal is still at the head of the government.
Responsible since July 16 for handling current affairs, he has just sent the ceiling letters granting credits to the ministries, so that, according to his services, the next government team can present a budget. “A pure scandal”, “hallucinatory”, “a coup de force”, storms the left, denouncing the continuation of a policy of “austerity”.
Never has a president taken so long to appoint a head of government after a legislative election. But never has the fragmented Assembly given so little sign of a majority. “An Assembly that breaks completely with the habits of the Fifth Republic. No one really knows how to approach it,” observes one of the negotiators.
On Friday morning, the coalition of left-wing parties of the New Popular Front and its candidate for Matignon, Lucie Castets, a senior civil servant unknown to the general public, will open the show while the right-wing of Laurent Wauquiez will present itself in the afternoon.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000The far-right leaders Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, like that of the right-wing party Les Républicains (LR) Éric Ciotti, who has formed an alliance with them, leading his political party into a deep crisis, will be received on Monday. They have no intention of participating in any coalition government.
The appointment of a prime minister “will take place following these consultations and their conclusions,” the presidential services said.
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Budget for the beginning October
On the left, these meetings take place at the time of the traditional summer universities. Lucie Castets will speak the day before at the ecologists, then the same evening of her meeting with the president at the communists and on Saturday at La France insoumise (LFI, radical left).
An adequate platform to try to increase the pressure on Emmanuel Macron, without forgetting the strategic divergences within the New Popular Front with the threat, hardly appreciated by its partners, of dismissal of the president brandished by the figurehead of the LFI party Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
If the president sticks to his refusal of the NFP – the censure of a Castets government including rebellious ministers “is acquired, it's arithmetic”, they repeat at the top of the executive -, who to occupy the post of prime minister ?
In the center, the presidential camp does not dare to come forward. On the right, Les Républicains have clearly ruled out the prospect of a government agreement.
Others are more open. And names are circulating… all the way to the centre-left. “The president has tested with interlocutors” the names of former ministers such as Xavier Bertrand, Jean-Louis Borloo, Michel Barnier and Bernard Cazeneuve, says a senior member of the presidential camp.
The president will have to deal with this Assembly for at least a year. Where all eyes are already on the budget which, Constitution requires, must imperatively be presented to Parliament at the beginning of October. Which presupposes a prior presentation to the Council of Ministers at the end of September. And therefore a government.