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POLITICS

France’s search for PM back to square one as hopeful quits

Hopes of France's left-wing bloc finding a consensus candidate to lead the country's next government after an inconclusive snap election unravelled Sunday as the best-placed contender dropped out.

Published: 14 July 2024 12:49 CEST
France's search for PM back to square one as hopeful quits
Regional Council of the French overseas island of La Reunion's President Huguette Bello speaks during the "Union Populaire Convention" in March. Photo: Bertrand GUAY/AFP.

A broad alliance of Socialists, Communists, Greens and the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) holds the largest number of seats in the National Assembly after last week’s election runoff, but with 193 seats in the 577-strong lower chamber they are well short of a majority.

The result, says the leftist bloc — called New Popular Front (NFP) —  entitles it to pitch their candidate for prime minister to President Emmanuel Macron, whose allies trailed in the vote.

Several days of wrangling within the loose coalition produced little until the emergence of 73-year-old Huguette Bello, a former communist MP and currently the president of the regional council in France’s overseas territory La Reunion, as a possible consensus candidate.

READ ALSO: Is France facing a summer of political chaos and unrest?

Bello quickly got the backing of LFI, communists and the Greens.

But they could not bring on board the centre-left Socialists, who have continued to back their party boss Olivier Faure for the job.

In the face of Socialist resistance, Bello said Sunday that she would drop out. In a statement, Bello said there was no consensus on her candidacy “among all members” of the NFP, notably the Socialists.

“Hopeful of an early agreement within the NFP, I have decided to decline without further delay the offer that I was made,” she said.

Bello’s withdrawal sends the left-wing alliance back to the drawing board.

“There is no consensus name,” Socialist party general secretary Pierre Jouvet told AFP late Saturday.

Macron, meanwhile, has ruled out a government role for either the LFI — the largest player in the New Popular Front (NFP) left alliance — or the far-right RN in any new coalition.

Macron’s allies came second with 164 seats in the election, and the far-right National Rally (RN) third at 143.

According to the constitution, Macron appoints the prime minister, who should be able to survive a confidence motion in parliament.

Outgoing Prime Minister Gabriel Attal is expected to submit his resignation to Macron over the coming days, but the president could ask Attal to stay on as a caretaker while Paris hosts the Olympic Games starting July 26.

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POLITICS

What’s going on with France’s government now the Olympics are over?

The country appeared to declare a national truce in the political wrangling in order to enjoy the Olympics - but now the Games are over, what happens next in the ongoing saga of the French government?

Published: 13 August 2024 16:33 CEST
What's going on with France's government now the Olympics are over?

For the last three weeks France – and much of the world – has been busy being enthralled by the Paris Olympics. From the beautiful venues to the astonishing sporting feats and the general sense of joie de vivre, it was a very happy period.

But now the Olympics are over (although the Paralympics start in two weeks) and France must again face its lack of a government.

What happened again?

In case a newly-acquired knowledge of the rules of competition skateboarding has caused you to forget, here’s a brief recap of where we were politically when the Games began at the end of July.

A parliamentary election, hastily called by Emmanuel Macron, resulted in an inconclusive result in which no party or group won a majority in the Assemblée nationale in the second round of voting on July 7th.

Instead three blocks emerged – the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) left alliance with 193, centrists including Macron’s party on 164 and the far-right Rassemblement National on 143. No party came even close to the 289 seats required for a majority. 

Things drifted for a while as it became obvious that not only did no party have a majority, but no-one had any immediate prospects of forming an alliance or coalition that would take them to the magic 289 seats.

On July 17th, Macron formally accepted the resignation of prime minister Gabriel Attal and his government, but asked them all to stay on in ‘caretaker’ roles until a new government could be created.

The caretaker government has been in power ever since – it can take decisions in case of emergency or urgent need, but has severely limited powers.

READ ALSO How does France’s caretaker government work?

Then what happened?

The Olympics started. Although no-one actually agreed to a political ‘truce’ the French public and French media seemed very happy to be distracted from this ongoing mess and instead focus on sport.

It helped that the Paris Olympics were a big success – the city looked gorgeous, French athletes won plenty and the whole country was in an unusually good mood.

But the politicians were still working behind the scenes, right?

There doesn’t seem to be much evidence of this. Most of the cabinet immediately decamped to the Games and were pictured cheering on French athletes and generally having fun.

Macron himself appears to have loved the Games – he attended multiple events, embraced French athletes and the closest he appears to have got to politics was attending the France-USA basketball final with the American ‘second gentleman’ Doug Emhoff. 

Meanwhile other ministers decamped to the seaside or the country for their traditional summer holidays.

The politicians of the leftist NFP continued to bang the drum for a new government, especially their eventual pick for prime minister Lucie Castets, who has been touring France introducing herself to the people and generally giving the vibe of a politician on the campaign trail.

So what now?

The Olympics are over and the Paralympics, while likely to be a fantastic sporting spectacle, probably won’t be accepted as an excuse to continue the drift.

On Tuesday, Attal proposed to the various parties of the French parliament that they ‘build a legislative compromise’ with a left-to-right spectrum of parties, but excluding the far-right Rassemblement National and the far-left La France Insoumise.

This is basically what the Macronists were proposing before the Olympics, and it remains to be seen whether they will find enough (or any) parties willing to agree to join, and who could be acceptable to all parties as a candidate for prime minister. Meanwhile the NFP continues to insist that as the largest group it has the right to nominate a prime minister, the aforementioned Castets.

Basically, nothing has changed.

So who’s in charge?

Macron remains president, with the wide-ranging powers afforded to him by the French constitution, but when it comes to government it’s still in caretaker mode, with Attal as a caretaker PM with limited powers.

How will this go on for?

Who can say? The Constitution does not provide any kind of limit for how long a caretaker government can remain in place, nor does Macron have a constitutional deadline by which to name a prime minister.

August is generally a pretty sleepy time in France so it’s possible or even likely that this could drag on until September.

Eventually patience will start to run out, with an increasingly widespread perception that Macron is simply seizing on the complicated situation and constitutional uncertainty in order to expand his own power.

One thing we do know – parliamentary elections are limited to once every 12 months, so there cannot be another one until June 2025.

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