French President Emmanuel Macron will convene party leaders for consultations next week, his office said on Friday. The aim is to overcome the political impasse and form a government after the new elections.
Weeks after parliamentary elections in which there was no clear majority in the lower house of the National Assembly, France still has no new prime minister.
Macron said in July that he would try to appoint a new prime minister after the Paris Olympics, which ended on August 11. He stressed that the parties in a fragmented parliament must first come together to form a broad coalition.
Although the successful Olympic Games have lifted the depressed mood in France, analysts say it is by no means certain that this will make up for Macron’s difficult fate.
On Friday, the Élysée presidential palace said Macron had invited party leaders to take part in “a series of talks” on August 23 to try to form a government.
“The appointment of a prime minister will result from these consultations and their conclusions,” the president said in a statement.
The French people have expressed “the desire for change and broad unity,” the statement said.
“All political leaders must work in a spirit of responsibility to implement this desire,” said the Élysée Palace, expressing the hope that the consultations will help to achieve “the broadest and most stable majority possible.”
The left-wing New Popular Front, which became the strongest faction after the elections, has announced that it wants to make 37-year-old economist Lucie Castets the new prime minister.
Macron had already rejected the left-wing alliance’s proposal to appoint a new prime minister at the end of July.
However, the left-wing bloc will continue to push for Castets to be appointed prime minister at next week’s meeting, Manuel Bompard, coordinator of the far-right France Instinct (LFI), the largest player in the left-wing alliance, said on Friday at X.
– Olympic afterglow –
Macron is ready to receive Castets, a little-known senior official, at the talks next week, a member of the president’s team told AFP.
“The president obviously has no objections as long as it is a collective request,” the source said.
Macron’s forces would prefer an alliance with the traditional right and part of the centre-left camp. Former minister and current head of the northern Hauts de France region, Xavier Bertrand, is often mentioned as a candidate to lead a centrist coalition.
Macron has ruled out a government role in a new coalition for either the radical left party “La France Instinct” or the extreme right of Marine Le Pen.
The government of his allies under Prime Minister Gabriel Attal continued to run the business on an interim basis.
In June, Macron shocked the nation by dissolving parliament and calling new elections. Seats in the 577-member assembly are now divided between three similarly sized blocs.
Any French government must be able to survive a vote of confidence in Parliament, otherwise it risks being immediately expelled from Parliament.
Acting Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said political uncertainty had hurt the economy and observers expect passing the 2025 budget in the autumn to be a challenge.
“Macron is counting on the aftermath of the triumphant Paris Olympics to help him,” said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group.
“The key will be to convince some of the centre-left and centre-right camps that the new prime minister is there to save France, not to save Macron.”
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