The left-wing parties have finally reached a compromise on a name for Matignon: the New Popular Front (NFP) on Tuesday, July 22, designated Lucie Castets, a 37-year-old senior civil servant largely unknown to the general public. She spoke Wednesday morning on France Inter, calling on Emmanuel Macron to designate her as Prime Minister.
Interviewed for the first time since the results of the legislative elections, Emmanuel Macron refused the day before to comment on this name, saying: “The question is not a name, it is what majority can emerge in the Assembly so that a government can implement reforms, pass a budget and move the country forward.”
Key information to remember
⇒ The left-wing parties call on Macron to nominate the candidate they have chosen, Lucie Castets
⇒ Jean-Luc Mélenchon accuses the president of wanting to “impose his republican front”
⇒ Emmanuel Macron announces that he will keep the Attal government in current affairs at least until mid-August
Lucie Castets calls on Emmanuel Macron to choose her
The candidate designated by the left for Matignon, Lucie Castets, asked the President of the Republic to “take responsibility” and appoint her as Prime Minister, while affirming that a coalition between the left and the presidential camp was “impossible”.
Deploring on France Inter the “inconsistency” and the denial of democracy” of President Macron who rejected her candidacy on Tuesday evening, the 37-year-old senior civil servant asked Emmanuel Macron to take “his responsibilities” and to appoint (her) as Prime Minister. But she assures that “a coalition with the presidential camp is impossible because of our profound disagreements”. “There is no possible agreement between those who want everyone to pay their fair share of taxes and those who instead propose tax breaks to the most privileged people”, she said.
Macron, “a madman entrenched in the Elysée”, according to Manuel Bompard
La France Insoumise coordinator Manuel Bompard said on RTL on Wednesday that Emmanuel Macron was “a kind of madman entrenched in the Élysée” and called for mobilizations so that he appoints Lucie Castets, the candidate proposed by the New Popular Front as Prime Minister.
Believing that “the battle is not over” and that it is necessary to engage in “a power struggle” with the Elysée, Mr. Bompard “calls for mobilizations in society”. “Let everyone take up this issue to force the President of the Republic to do what he should do”, he declared. “The logic is that he calls on the personality that we propose to him to form a government and that then this government is formed, that we begin to implement our policy and that then everyone takes their responsibilities in the Assembly”, he summarized.
On RMC, the communist Fabien Roussel ruled out “participating in a coalition with the presidential camp that has done so much harm to the French”, as demanded by Emmanuel Macron who called for “compromises” between the parties that formed a republican front against the RN in the legislative elections. “Of course we are going to mobilize, of course we are going to appeal to the French”, said Mr. Roussel.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon: Macron “wants to forcefully impose his republican front on us”
Emmanuel Macron “wants to forcefully impose his new republican front on us and force us to renounce our program to form an alliance with him. That is out of the question,” denounced the rebellious leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon on Tuesday evening.
Emmanuel Macron had just urged the political forces that had united against the National Rally (RN) during the legislative elections to make “compromises”. He also judged that the left had “no majority” in the National Assembly.
“The Republican front is not a program, but a democratic reflex. Macron is attempting a culpable diversion,” criticized the leader of the PS Olivier Faure, believing that denial “leads to the worst policy.”
For the leader of the Ecologists Marine Tondelier, the head of state is “totally out of touch with reality”, she deplored to AFP, ironizing about a president who “could qualify without problem for all the rowing events of the Olympics”. “We are not going to make the government of ‘at the same time’. He must appoint Lucie Castets, he has no choice”, she added, emphasizing that with the New Popular Front, there is “popular pressure”. “That will help Macron to appoint her”, she added.
Communist leader Fabien Roussel, for his part, considered Emmanuel Macron “very dangerous”, “locked in his bubble, cut off from the people”. “He refuses to appoint the candidate for the post of Prime Minister proposed by the coalition that came out on top in the elections. Extreme violence for our democracy”, he hammered home on X.
“Faced with this denial, the resigning government must be censured by the Assembly,” said MP François Ruffin.
Emmanuel Macron: Attal government maintained at least until mid-August
In his first interview since the results of the legislative elections, Emmanuel Macron commented on the political situation in the country in the run-up to the Paris Olympic Games, which are due to open this Friday, July 26. The President of the Republic returned to his decision to dissolve the National Assembly on the evening of the European elections of June 9, won by the National Rally.
“I made this choice consciously, with great seriousness, because the National Assembly no longer corresponded to French society,” he said. “Everyone told us that in the fall the motion of censure would arrive,” justified Emmanuel Macron, before stating: “I took my responsibilities by asking the French women and men to choose.”
Asked about the results of the early legislative elections of 30 June and 7 July, which did not produce a clear majority, he acknowledged that the outgoing majority had “lost this election”, but considered that “no one” had “won”. He called on the political forces to be “up to what they did in the inter-round elections”. “The responsibility of these parties is to do something that all European democracies do, […] knowing how to compromise,” he pointed out.
Claiming to have chosen “stability”, Emmanuel Macron assumed to keep the Attal government “in current affairs” for the duration of the Olympic Games, at least until mid-August, he specified. Considering that the responsibility of the political parties was “immense” for the future, he cited security, access to public services and purchasing power as priorities that he believed the next government should tackle.
Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that he did not intend to appoint a new government before the end of the Olympic Games, “mid-August”, and dismissed the surprise candidacy of senior civil servant Lucie Castets put forward by the left for Matignon.