In a bid to form a new government, Leaders of France’s leftwing coalition have demanded that Emmanuel Macron agrees to let them form the country’s new government as the president holds a series of meetings to break the six-week political deadlock.
Macron has already rejected the New Popular Front’s (NFP) candidate to be appointed prime minister, saying he wants a government leader with “broad and stable” support to avoid a parliamentary vote of no confidence that would cause further political chaos.
NFP representatives have accused the president of dragging his feet over appointing a new PM, accusing him of “serious and damaging inaction” and failing to accept the results of the snap general election he called.
France has been in a political stalemate since the beginning of July after the legislative election failed to produce a majority. The vote divided the Assemblée Nationale, the lower house of parliament, into three roughly equal blocs – left, centre and far right – none of which has a working majority.
The centrist government, led by Gabriel Attal, resigned after the July election, but has remained to oversee a minimum service administration during the Olympic “truce” called by the president.
The parties have been invited to the Elysee based on the number of MPs they had elected for what the spokesperson said were hoped to be “loyal and sincere consultation with the aim of moving things forward in the interest of the country”.
On Friday morning, Macron will meet representatives of the NFP, the leftwing alliance created to see off the threat of a far-right National Rally victory in the second-round vote.
The NFP, an uneasy coalition of the hard-left France Unbowed (La France Insoumise), the Socialist party and the Greens and Communist parties, has proposed civil servant Lucie Castets, 37, as its preferred candidate to become PM and she will accompany the group to the meeting. Macron has already rejected her nomination.
Macron will then meet members of centre and centre-right parties including the conservative Les Républicains on Friday afternoon and far-right representatives including those from the National Rally on Monday.
Centrists, conservative right and far-right parties have threatened a no-confidence motion if the next government is led by a member of France Unbowed.
France Unbowed has made the same threat if the new PM is not an NFP candidate. The NFP won the most seats, 193, but considerably short of the 289 required for an absolute majority. Within the NFP, France Unbowed gained the largest number of seats.
Before the meetings, an Elysée spokesperson was unable to indicate when a new PM would be named.
“After six weeks which have been useful, the president wanted to gather together the political forces represented in parliament with a view to naming a prime minister,” he said.
“The president has fixed a clear goal: he has asked republican forces to work and listen to each other to form the largest majority, that’s to say with the most MPs and also one that is the most stable, meaning that it cannot be overturned.”
He added that the election had brought “three lessons”.
“The first is that the outgoing majority lost. The second is that the French didn’t want a government led by the far-right National Rally and the third is that no coalition is in a position to claim a majority – which is a first in the history of the Fifth Republic.”
