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French President Emmanuel Macron kicked off meetings with political leaders from across the spectrum on Friday with a view to naming a prime minister nearly seven weeks after snap legislative elections resulted in a hung parliament.
Macron meets leaders from the left, right and centre at the Élysée Palace on Friday and Monday, beginning with the leftwing Nouveau Front Populaire alliance and its candidate for prime minister Lucie Castets, a civil servant. But the president has so far indicated he will not appoint her because she does not command a parliamentary majority.
“We had a very rich discussion,” Castets said on Friday after the meeting. While Macron had acknowledged the message sent by voters last month, when they deprived his alliance of a parliamentary majority, he still displayed a “temptation . . . to form his government”, she said.
“We told him that it was up to the political force that came out on top, the NFP, to form a government,” adding she was ready to “build coalitions”.
Macron and his allies argue that the NFP — which became the largest bloc in the July snap election but remains far short of a governing majority — does not have the support to govern.
Green party leader Marine Tondelier pressed Macron for an answer on who would be named PM by Tuesday.
After meeting Macron, Laurent Wauquiez, a leading figure within the conservative Les Republicains, said his MPs would not participate in any coalition and would vote down any government that included far-left ministers.
“We don’t believe in a coalition system where you put together people who do not agree, leading to the impasse we are in now,” Wauquiez said. He added that he believed the far-left La France Insoumise, which is part of the NFP alliance, represented “a danger to our Republic”.
The president’s office said he would name a prime minister following the talks, but would not be drawn on a timeline.
Some names circulating include former socialist prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve and conservative politician Xavier Bertrand, according to insiders. There has also been media speculation that Karim Bouamrane, the socialist mayor of a Paris suburb, could be considered, though Élysée officials said he would not be among the delegations meeting the president.
Michel Barnier, a former foreign minister and EU Brexit negotiator, is also a potential nominee.
Outgoing prime minister Gabriel Attal resigned last month but stayed on as caretaker following the snap vote called by Macron. However, with the summer break coming to an end, the Paris Olympic Games over and the 2025 budget looming, the pressure to form a new government is mounting.
The July poll markedly reduced the number of seats held by Macron’s centrist alliance. But the takeaway from the vote, according to an Élysée official, is that “no alliance is able to claim a majority”.
“There is the need for these political forces and for political leaders to come to an agreement . . . Everyone is being forced to change tack and enter into a logic of coalition,” they said.
That is a tall order in France’s Fifth Republic, however, where experience of coalition politics is scarce. Macron wants “republican forces” — excluding Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National party, which came third, but also La France Insoumise — to find the largest and most stable majority possible, his office said.
Under the constitution, the president has a free hand in naming a prime minister, but Macron faces a complex puzzle in identifying someone who can garner the support needed to govern.
Allies within his camp have envisioned forming a coalition that runs the gamut from the centre-left to the rightwing Les Republicains. But so far the NFP has held together despite mounting tensions within the group, while some leaders on the right have said they would not want to participate in a coalition with the left.