Leaders of France’s leftwing coalition declared they were “extremely satisfied” after Emmanuel Macron launched the first of a series of tense consultations aimed at pulling together a new government.
The New Popular Front (NFP) wants the president to name its candidate prime minister to break a six-week political deadlock.
Macron had already rejected the NFP’s proposed candidate, 37-year-old civil servant Lucie Castets, as prime minister, saying he wanted a government leader with “broad and stable” support to avoid a parliamentary vote of no confidence that would cause further political chaos.
After the hour-long meeting at the Elysée on Friday morning, NFP representatives suggested the talks, predicted to be tense, had been positive even if Macron has yet to name a PM.
“After two months, the president is beginning to understand he lost the election,” Manuel Bompard, of the hard-left La France Insoumise (France Unbowed), a member of the coalition, said. However, he said Macron should act as “a referee…not a selecter”.
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 Elysée 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”.
The NFP, an uneasy coalition of the hard-left France Unbowed (La France Insoumise), the Socialist party and the Greens and Communist parties, created to see off the threat of a far-right National Rally victory, won the most number of seats, 193, but considerablly short of the 289 required for an absolute majority, was the first into the Élysée on Friday morning.
Macron then met members of centre and centre-right parties including the conservative Les Républicains. He will hold talks with National Rally representatives 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.
after newsletter promotion
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 … 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.”
