Macron brings together French political forces on Friday

Photo: Manon Cruz Pool via Associated Press Emmanuel Macron, during a ceremony to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the village of Bormes-les-Mimosas, on August 17.

Didier Lauras – Agence France-Presse in Paris

Posted at 12:35 a.m.

• Europe

French President Emmanuel Macron is bringing together some of France's major political forces on Friday, his first initiative since the Olympic Games break to finally provide the country with a government.

The day will be as long as it is tense for the head of state, contested even within his own camp since he decided almost alone, in the aftermath of disastrous European elections, to dissolve the National Assembly and call early legislative elections.

He is due to open the sequence at 10:30 a.m., by receiving at the Élysée the New Popular Front (NFP), a circumstantial alliance of left-wing forces (radical left, socialists, environmentalists and communists), who created a surprise by winning 193 deputies, far from an absolute majority (289).

He continues at 1:00 p.m. with the leaders of his camp, then the Republican right. The Macronist camp has 166 representatives.

Two other more minority formations will end the day, before new talks on Monday with the far right of the National Rally (RN) and its allies (142 deputies), the only ones to exclude a coalition and to prepare for the next deadlines, in particular the presidential election of 2027.

The aim of these consultations is “to determine under what conditions” the political forces can define a “broad majority”, the Élysée explained on Thursday, assuring that the president was “guarantor of the institutions”.

“Stability” is “the ability of a government not to fall at the first motion of censure tabled”, the same source insisted.

On the left, the NFP is defending tooth and nail its candidate for the post of prime minister, senior civil servant Lucie Castets, 37, who was announced to be present at the Élysée on Friday. The bloc deplored on Thursday that the head of state was “procrastinating rather than drawing the consequences” of the elections.

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“As in all parliamentary democracies, the coalition that comes out on top must be able to form a government,” its leaders have hammered home. “We are ready.”

But the deadlock is total: Macron has ruled out appointing Lucie Castets. And the presidential camp, the right and the far right are threatening a motion of censure against any government that includes ministers from La France Insoumise (LFI, radical left).

The party is seen as a bogeyman, accused in particular of complacency towards the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, and even of anti-Semitism.

And its fiery and very divisive leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has driven a new wedge into the alliance by threatening to demand the impeachment of the head of state. An initiative that has very little chance of succeeding and which has not been followed up.

If the president sticks to his refusal of the NFP – the censure of a Castets government including rebellious ministers “is a given, it's arithmetic”, they repeat at the top of the executive – who will lead the government ?

In the center, the presidential camp does not dare to come forward. On the right, Les Républicains are rather reluctant to the prospect of a government agreement. Others are more open. And the names of former ministers are circulating, all the way to the center-left.

The political jousting, which began before the Olympics, has resumed in earnest. With the urgent need for the country to deliver, by October 1, a budget for 2025.

The left is promising a policy of rupture, including an increase in the minimum wage and the repeal of the very unpopular pension reform.

But Gabriel Attal, who has remained in office for six weeks to deal with current affairs, has already sent the ceiling letters granting their credits to the ministries. “Pure scandal”, “coup de force”, vociferated the NFP.

Meanwhile, the left-wing parties each held their traditional back-to-school seminars or “summer universities”. The opportunity for Lucie Castets, unknown to the general public, to chain together appearances and build her credibility.