Now that the Olympic Games are over, Emmanuel Macron is beginning to feel the urgency of appointing a prime minister. A meeting has been scheduled in the presence of the head of state for Friday, August 23rd, bringing together the leaders of the parties represented in the National Assembly. The La France Insoumise party (LFI) is calling for the president’s impeachment in protest of the appointment deadline, which is constantly being pushed back.
Macron has announced that he intends to meet the presidents of the parties and parliamentary groups at the Elysée Palace on Friday, August 23rd to discuss the formation of the next government—a process that has been on hold since July 16th, when the previous prime minister, Gabriel Attal, resigned in the wake of the legislative elections on July 7th. The president’s stated aim is to work towards building a majority that is “as broad as possible.”
The New Popular Front (NFP) coalition, which considers itself to be the winner of the election, intends to present a united front at the meeting to make its voice heard and win the government. The candidate nominated by the coalition for the post of prime minister, Lucie Castets, is due to attend, and the president has not objected to the NFP’s request.
Marine Le Pen protested the inclusion of Castets. Coming out of her silence after a period of holiday, Le Pen vigorously challenged Castets’ legitimacy on X, emphasising that the would-be PM holds no public mandate.
“The appointment of a prime minister will follow on from these consultations and their conclusions,” the Élysée palace announced in a press release.
Faced with the president’s hesitations, the La France Insoumise party is showing its growing impatience. In a statement, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party called for the president to be impeached. If Macron refuses to appoint Lucie Castets as prime minister, “we will use the constitutional means at our disposal to overthrow you,” threatened LFI MP Manuel Bompard. The party’s stance is not being shared by its allies in the New Popular Front coalition, making LFI appear once again as the epitome of outrageousness in its political leanings. Some left-wing MPs are worried that the “polyphony” of the coalition is turning into “cacophony.”
While Lucie Castets’ name is still the focus of hopes on the Left, other figures from the centre have been appearing insistently in the press for several days: Xavier Bertrand, a former minister from Les Républicains, Bertrand Cazeneuve, a Socialist, and Valérie Pécresse, the unsuccessful centre-right candidate for the 2022 presidential elections who received less than 5% of the vote—in all cases, those figures will have hard work ahead to achieve any semblance of consensus.
