French left pressures Macron to form Government

The left-wing coalition in France on Thursday accused center-right President Emmanuel Macron of “serious inaction” for not naming a new prime minister almost two months after early legislative elections, which they won without a majority.

Macron announced that tomorrow, Friday, he will begin a round of consultations with all the political groups of the new National Assembly and the Senate, a process that will help him finally designate a new prime minister, although the Elysée does not impose a calendar or deadline.

“The president approaches the consultations with the desire that there can be a loyal, sincere dialogue and that these consultations be useful to the country,” Elysée sources said this Thursday on the eve of the first of the meetings, which will take place in the morning between the president and the leftist coalition of the New Popular Front (NFP).

The order of reception will be based on the representation of the blocks in the legislature, which is why NFP will be the first to go to the Elysée having obtained the largest number of deputies – 193 along with other leftist allies – in the elections. legislative elections last July, although it remains far from the absolute majority of 289 seats that allows it to govern comfortably.

The representatives of the NFP – which is made up of the Socialist Party (PS), the more radical France Insoumise (LFI), the environmentalists and the communists – will attend the meeting with Lucie Castets, the candidate they have jointly proposed to succeed the Macronist Gabriel Attal at the head of the Government.

Since the elections, the left has been demanding that Macron – since in France the president is the one who appoints the prime minister, although the National Assembly then has the ability to overthrow him through a motion of censure – to appoint a líder of the Executive from among his ranks and accuses him of ignoring the verdict of the polls.

“The inaction of the President of the Republic is serious and pernicious,” said both Castets and the heads of the four parties that make up the coalition, in a joint letter released today.

In it they insisted that Macron’s refusal to name a prime minister until now, with the Olympic truce included, evidences his desire to prolong his policies, which they described as “unfair” and authoritarian. Furthermore, according to them, “it gives the impression that the vote is of no use.”