EDITORIAL. After the Olympic Games, the end of presidential procrastination?

Does the closing of the Games mark the end of the political truce? Emmanuel Macron is very tempted to prolong the pleasure of the Olympics and take his time appointing a Prime Minister.

On the political calendar, contradictory signals have been sent out from the Elysée in recent days. At the end of the first week of the Games, Alexis Kohler warned some MPs that everything could move very quickly, that they had to be ready for the appointment of the new Prime Minister, why not the day after the closing ceremony. A council of ministers was even considered for Monday 12 August, although never clearly confirmed at Matignon. But at the end of this week, at the Elysée we were told “Not at all. The president has always said ‘not before mid-August’.”

In reality, after the closing ceremony on Sunday evening at the Stade de France, the temptation is strong for the president to ride the wave of the success of these Games, so welcome after months of political tensions. This is the message he intends to convey on Monday noon to the police, firefighters, associations, Crous managers, all the public and private stakeholders of the Olympic Games that he is bringing together at the Elysée. “It will be time to thank and continue this unprecedented mobilization which contributes to making the French proud and to making our country shine throughout the world”the official statement said.

According to several sources, he should then spend the week consulting on the choice of his future Prime Minister. But then the schedule is busy: the 80th anniversary of the landing in Provence on August 15, return to Brégançon with mass in Bormes-les-Mimosas on the 17th, the day of the liberation of the town in 1944, and on the 25th that of Paris… Which will bring him on August 28 to the opening of the Paralympic Games, which will last until September 8.

At Matignon, an advisor himself acknowledges a total lack of visibility on the end of the mission. What seems likely is that no government will be formed at that time. But a window remains possible the week of August 19, to at least appoint a new Prime Minister – which would lead to the departure of Gabriel Attal and the three ministers directly attached: Prisca Thévenot, Marie Lebec and Aurore Bergé – the others still managing current affairs. It is hard to imagine a change of Minister of Sports before the start of the Paralympic competition.

But it will be two months since the legislative elections took place. There is an urgent need to act in certain areas, particularly for the preparation of the 2025 budget. Normally, we enter the hard part of the preparation at the beginning of August, with the sending of “ceiling letters” to each ministry. In fact, Bercy has forwarded them to Matignon, which will pass them on to the next one. But the race against time continues: to be examined in the Assembly at the beginning of October, the final budget must be sent in mid-September to the Council of State and the High Council of Public Finances, with adoption by the Council of Ministers at the end of September.

The emergency is also political: the French, as happy as they are with these Olympic Games, were sent back to the polls by the dissolution of June 9 and are now waiting for their vote to be taken into account. Not “adding procrastination to dissolution”, writes LR senator Philippe Bas in a column in World a few days ago, recalling Article 8 of the Constitution: the President appoints the Prime Minister… and does not have to wait for the political parties to reach an agreement among themselves.