Lucie Castets. This is the new name put forward by the New Popular Front for the post of Prime Minister. A woman who, this time, has brought the union of the left into agreement…
Will Lucie Castets be appointed Prime Minister by Emmanuel Macron this summer? This is the question that arises after the New Popular Front announced that it had agreed on this name for Matignon, Tuesday evening. After having come close to a split over the names of Huguette Bello and Laurence Tubiana in recent days, France Insoumise, the Socialist Party, the Ecologists and the Communist Party are therefore putting forward this profile, totally unknown to the French, to form a government in place of that of Gabriel Attal, who has resigned.
The name of Lucie Castets, a graduate of the ENA and economist, now director of finances for the city of Paris, was first confirmed by the head of the Green Party, Marine Tondelier, on X, shortly after 7pm on Tuesday, after the first reports from the newspaper L’Humanité. The newspaper then described a “graduate of Sciences Po and the London School of Economics, former student of the ENA”, who “landed her first position at the General Directorate of the Treasury before joining Tracfin, the anti-money laundering unit of Bercy”.
A defender of public services
Although little is known about Lucie Castets, she has apparently “become noticed in recent months through her role as spokesperson for the civil servants’ collective ‘Our Public Services'”, according to several press titles.
In a press release published later in the evening, the NFP also praised the qualities of this “leader of associative struggles for the defense and promotion of public services, actively engaged in the fight of ideas against retirement at 64” and assured her of “its complete commitment at its side in the government that she will lead”.
19:41 – A brilliant move against Stanislas Guérini on television
Among the feats of arms spotted today concerning Lucie Castets, a television appearance at the end of 2022 resurfaces this evening. In the program C ce soir, she had addressed the former Minister of Civil Service, Stanislas Guérini, on the subject of the reduction in the number of civil servants, at a time when the government was facing the controversy over the use of consulting firms. “We lost 180,000 civil servants between 2006 and 2018, at the same time the use of consulting firms exploded,” she said to this close friend of Emmanuel Macron, himself defeated in the last legislative elections in the capital.
19:34 – An announcement that thwarts Macron’s plans
By announcing an agreement and a name a few minutes before an interview with Emmanuel Macron live on France 2, the NFP is in any case putting pressure on the head of state, who was already expected on the timetable for appointing the new government, expected since the legislative elections and even more so after the structuring of the Assembly, which filled its key positions last week. Emmanuel Macron had called yesterday for a “political truce” during the Olympic Games and thus sees his plans thwarted.