None of the scenarios on the table in France to form a government are winning, 51 days after the dissolution of the National Assembly by President Macron, in a deeply divided country.
Three hypotheses are on the table, while the resigning government of Gabriel Attal continues to manage current affairs and the country must present a budget on 1er october.
The National Assembly resulting from the legislative elections of early July is divided into three large blocs, the alliance of the left of the New Popular Front (NFP, 193 deputies), the Macronists (centre, 166 deputies) and the extreme right of the National Rally (RN, 142 deputies). For an elusive majority of 289 seats.
Overview of the (im)possibles, between a left-wing government rejected by the Élysée, a government going from the right to the social democrats in which neither the right nor the socialists want to participate, and a “technical” government, which would only survive thanks to the hypothetical benevolence of the extreme right.
Exit the NFP hypothesis
After more than fifteen days of painful negotiations, the NFP parties (radical left, socialists, communists and ecologists) agreed on July 23 to bring senior civil servant Lucie Castets to Matignon.
Since then, this 37-year-old woman, unknown to the general public, has not attempted to broaden her base, either towards the centre or the left wing of Macron’s party.
Furthermore, the NFP failed to elect its candidate for the presidency of the Assembly, beaten by the outgoing Macronist Yaël Braun-Pivet.
From the centre to the far right to the right, all the other parties have indicated that they would censure an NFP government, whose very left-wing programme they consider “dangerous”.
Reason given by President Emmanuel Macron to draw the curtain on the Castets hypothesis on Monday, despite protests from left-wing leaders.
The fiction of a broad coalition
Since the legislative elections, the presidential camp has been calling for a German-style coalition government ranging from the right to the social democrats, with a potential of 301 deputies.
But on both the right and the left, no one wants to be associated too closely with a Macronist party that has been defeated three times at the ballot box and is very unpopular in the streets.
The Republican Right is proposing a form of support without participation in a government. But it refuses to “commit to a vote on the budget or to support or participation in the government,” the head of state noted on Monday.
On the left, support for such a government remains very much in the minority, even if some socialist leaders want to resume discussions with the Macronists.
On Wednesday, former Socialist president-elect François Hollande indicated that he did not believe in an alliance with the centre, which was “inevitably doomed to an impasse”. But this “must not prevent the Socialists from supporting everything that can move the country forward”.
A technical government at the mercy of the RN
Last option: a government without a majority in the Assembly, but with the goodwill of the extreme right, the traditional right, and even part of the left.
A Macronist MP thus considers “very credible” a prime minister “who has experience of Parliament, […] center-right or center-left and to whom the Assembly would give a chance. He would live with the “sword of Damocles” of a censure of the RN, but “otherwise we do nothing,” he defends, also looking towards the center-left.
“Do all centre-left MPs by definition censor a government that may commit to taking up some of their ideas?” he asks.
Political leaders are contesting the position of arbiter thus assigned to the RN, beaten in the second round of the legislative elections due to the republican front drawn up by the left and the Macronists, but having the largest group.
“The Macronist bloc is instrumentalizing each other in turn, when it suits them,” comments RN MP Thomas Ménagé. “Everyone feels like the election is being stolen from them. The feeling of disgust among the French is very significant,” he told AFP.