President Emmanuel Macron’s camp is trying on Wednesday to find a solution other than the left to govern France by turning to a hesitant right, while the deputies of the National Rally entered the Assembly promising a future revenge.
No party or coalition of parties has achieved an absolute majority of 289 deputies in the new National Assembly. Having come out on top in the early legislative elections, the New Popular Front (left-wing alliance) won 190 to 195 elected representatives, the presidential camp around 160 and the extreme right more than 140 seats.
If the left-wing alliance intends to propose a prime minister to President Macron, a large part of Macron’s party refuses and takes out the calculator.
“There are just over 160 of us today […] and I hear LR (Les Républicains, conservative, editor’s note), various right-wing, UDI (centre-right, editor’s note), even various left-wing, deputies who would be ready to join us, which means that we could numerically surpass the left-wing bloc,” affirmed the Minister responsible for Gender Equality Aurore Bergé (Renaissance, presidential party), re-elected as an MP on Sunday.
The outgoing leader of the Renaissance deputies, Sylvain Maillard, has also called a “group meeting” on Wednesday to “look at which deputies are likely” to expand the central bloc.
Matignon for the right?
As has been the case since 2022, the presidential camp is essentially looking to the right to find allies. “There could be a right-wing prime minister, that wouldn’t bother me at all,” Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said.
An option approved by many deputies who want to avoid “at all costs” a government including members of La France Insoumise (LFI, radical left), whom they would censor.
On Tuesday evening, former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe (Horizons, centre-right) had already called for the signing of a “technical agreement” with Les Républicains, with a view to “moving forward and managing the country’s affairs for at least a year”.
After having been inflexible on the hypothesis of a coalition, certain leaders of the right seem to be gradually opening up to the idea, arguing for the appointment of a prime minister from their camp at the head of a “rally government”.
But Laurent Wauquiez, another leading figure who is making a comeback on the national scene and seems well on his way to being elected president of the new LR parliamentary group, is defending an “uncompromising” line, which could complicate matters.
Above all, with a maximum of sixty LR or various right-wing deputies, these potential future allies are far from ensuring an absolute majority for the Macronists.
This is why the head of the MoDem, François Bayrou, advocates another line, set above all by the head of state, and the appointment of a consensual prime minister.
“It is not the parties that will make the majority, it is the president who decides which personality can bring people together the most, taking into account the nuances of the National Assembly,” he believes.
“Postponed” for the RN
Faced with these negotiations, the left denounced the “scheming” of the presidential camp. LFI coordinator Manuel Bompard accused Emmanuel Macron of “multiplying the maneuvers” to “divert the result” of the legislative elections.
The NFP is also battling internally between its two main components, LFI and PS (socialist party).
Faced with this disorder, Marine Le Pen castigated the “quagmire” following the early legislative elections, upon entering the Palais Bourbon, seat of the National Assembly.
In a tense atmosphere in front of the cameras, the new RN deputies – who will number around 143 with their allies – took their places in the Assembly in the morning.
“A number of manoeuvres, including massive withdrawals, have deprived us of an absolute majority. It’s only a postponement,” declared Marine Le Pen, re-elected president of the RN group in the Assembly.
RN President Jordan Bardella then gathered the group’s deputies, asking them to be “perfectly irreproachable” during their term, echoing the multiple slip-ups of RN candidates that polluted the campaign. “Your responsibility will be […] to increase the credibility of our project,” he said.
Still silent on the political situation, Emmanuel Macron flew to Washington, where he was to participate in a two-day NATO summit.