France plunged into confusion and still without a prime minister

(Paris) After categorically rejecting the scenario of a left-wing government, Emmanuel Macron opened a “new cycle of consultations” on Tuesday to finally find a prime minister for France, in an increasingly tense political climate.

On the eve of the opening of the Paralympic Games and a few days before the start of the school year, France is still governed by an executive that has resigned, and this has been the case for more than 40 days now, something never seen since the end of the Second World War.

The head of state is resuming consultations in a very unclear context. Neither the far right nor the far left have been invited, some invited officials have refused to participate and “personalities” whose names have not been communicated will be consulted, including former presidents.

These new discussions come a day after Mr Macron rejected a government of the New Popular Front (NFP, the left-wing alliance that came out on top in the legislative elections) and its candidate for prime minister, senior civil servant Lucie Castets.

The president has put forward “institutional stability” to rule out this option, with the other political blocs, from the centre to the far right, all promising to censure a government whose very left-wing programme is considered “dangerous”.

“Denial of democracy”

But the presidential decision, announced Monday evening in a long press release, has provoked the anger of the NFP, which is shouting “denial of democracy”.

La France Insoumise (LFI), the radical left member of the left alliance with the socialists, the ecologists and the communists, has called for a demonstration against “Emmanuel Macron’s coup” on September 7.

Olivier Faure, the leader of the Socialist Party, announced that he would not go to the presidential palace of the Élysée for the new consultations, denouncing a “parody of democracy”.

“We are not going to continue this circus,” added environmentalist Marine Tondelier, while communist Fabien Roussel promised that the left would continue to “fight” and called on the French to mobilize.

Having come out on top in the July legislative elections, the left-wing coalition does not have an absolute majority in the National Assembly. But the two other blocs of the presidential camp and the extreme right are even less well off, making the search for compromise extremely complex.

“Lack of method”

The camp of President Macron, whose decision to dissolve the Assembly after his failure in the European elections on June 9 plunged the country into political confusion, is calling for “responsibility” and is seeking to rally the socialists and isolate the radical left.

The resigning Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, thus advocated on BFMTV television on Tuesday a “broad coalition”, assuring that Macron’s supporters “could agree on a minimum” with the socialists to “allow France to function”.

The traditional right, for its part, refuses any coalition, without excluding “voting for what goes in the right direction” in order “not to let France head into a wall”, according to one of its leaders, Valérie Pécresse.

The far right, for its part, continues to accuse the French president of having “sown chaos”.

Unsurprisingly, the left-wing daily Release castigated on Tuesday in a front page “the contempt” of the head of state. His right-wing competitor Figaro believed that “France is avoiding a catastrophe” with the rejection of an NFP government, while stressing that “nothing has been resolved”.

The head of state does not have much time left to choose a prime minister, since a budget must be presented on 1^er October in the Assembly.

And in the short term, his schedule is full. Emmanuel Macron is due to open the Paralympic Games on Wednesday evening, before flying to Serbia on Thursday afternoon.