The pressure is mounting before decisive interviews. Before being received at 10:30 am at the Elysée with the other leaders of the New Popular Front and Lucie Castets, Friday August 23, Manuel Bompard was the guest of the franceinfo morning show. He denounced Emmanuel Macron’s refusal to appoint the candidate of the left as Prime Minister: it is a “autocratic behavior” according to the national coordinator of La France insoumise. “The President of the Republic must now accept his defeat in the last legislative elections.” Earlier, on TF1, the communist Fabien Roussel used another turn of phrase to denounce Emmanuel Macron’s position: “In Latin America, we call it a putsch, a coup d’état.” Follow our live stream.
The Greens”determined as never before”. Speaking to France Inter, the national secretary of the Ecologists said: “optimistic” before going to the Elysée. Emmanuel Macron “decides to receive the forces in the protocol order and he receives us first. Maybe that means he finally recognizes the result of the election,” Marine Tondelier was particularly pleased. The candidate that the Greens and the entire NFP have chosen for Matignon, Lucie Castets, addressed a letter addressed to the French on Thursday, in which she proposes to find a “an unprecedented way of governing under the Fifth Republic.”
A series of interviews starting at 10:30 a.m. Emmanuel Macron has invited all the group presidents in the Assembly and the Senate, and the leaders of the parties represented in Parliament, between Friday and Monday. The NFP leaders will be accompanied by Lucie Castets, their candidate for Prime Minister, at 10:30 a.m. on Friday. Representatives of the presidential camp are invited at 1 p.m. and those of the right opposed to rallying to the RN, notably Laurent Wauquiez, at 3:30 p.m. Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, then Eric Ciotti, will be received on Monday morning.
Emmanuel Macron will appoint a Prime Minister “following these consultations”. This is what the Elysée announced to the press on Friday, August 16. For the moment, the president has not deviated from his words expressed in his letter sent to the French people on July 10, in which he called on the political forces to reach an agreement. He also rejected the candidacy of Lucie Castets upon her nomination by the NFP on July 23.
A fragmented National Assembly without a clear majority. The second round of the legislative elections of July 7th produced a hemicycle where no party reached the absolute majority of 289 seats. The NFP parties are in the lead with 193 seats, followed by the former presidential majority (166 seats), the RN and its allies from Ciott (142) and Les Républicains (47). A configuration that greatly complicates the establishment of a coalition.