While the French president is still looking for a prime minister, Emmanuel Macron is going to Serbia on Thursday for a two-day visit during which Paris and Belgrade plan to conclude the sale of twelve French Rafale fighter jets.
Key information to remember
⇒ Carole Delga believes that Macron has “the duty to choose from the left bloc”
⇒ The PS divided on participation in the government
⇒ The PS divided on participation in the government
Carole Delga believes that Macron has “the duty to choose from the left bloc”
Emmanuel Macron “has the right to refuse Lucie Castets” but has “the duty to choose from the left bloc” to appoint a Prime Minister, said the socialist president of the Occitanie region Carole Delga on Wednesday, in an interview with Le Parisien.
“We’re going to stop telling ourselves stories: it’s the President of the Republic who appoints a Prime Minister. He has the right to refuse Lucie Castets. But he has the duty to choose from the left-wing bloc,” declared Carole Delga, who will be received at the Elysée on Thursday morning.
When questioned, she cites the names of Johanna Rolland, PS mayor of Nantes, former minister Cécile Duflot, Bernard Cazeneuve, Fabien Roussel, Yannick Jadot and Benoît Hamon. And adds that she found it “disappointing” that Laurence Tubiana’s candidacy as Prime Minister of the New Popular Front “was not accepted”, due to the disagreement of La France Insoumise. She also claims to be personally “not a candidate for anything”.
Wauquiez: a “disappointing” interview
Received Wednesday morning at the Élysée, as part of new consultations launched by the head of state, the leader of the right Laurent Wauquiez, for his part, hardened his tone towards the head of state. He spoke of a “disappointing” interview and asked him to stop “procrastinating”.
“No new position, no real project for the French […]no vision of what a government program would be for the coming months,” lamented Laurent Wauquiez to the press. The Republicans say they are “open to collaborative work with the future government,” but without participating in it.
PS divided over participation in government
To participate or not in a government? The question is increasingly being debated on the left, on the eve of the opening of the PS summer universities in Blois. “The party is on the verge of breaking up,” said the mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin, Hélène Geoffroy, an internal opponent of the number one Olivier Faure. Like Carole Delga, she is calling for the resumption of “discussions with the president” in order to “still seek solutions for a socialist (or) social-democrat Prime Minister.”
A pragmatism also defended by the other leader of the minority current within the PS, the mayor of Rouen Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol. “If we have the possibility of implementing, perhaps not the entire program but important policies” on salaries, schools and hospitals, “then we must give this a chance,” he said.
Less direct, the former president and new deputy François Hollande considers that the socialists must “support everything that can move the country forward”, while excluding an “alliance with the center […] inevitably doomed to an impasse”. So many declarations that go against the official line of the party, which refuses, like the other members of the NFP, to return to the Élysée to discuss anything other than cohabitation with Lucie Castets, their candidate for Matignon. Which augurs frank and lively debates at the PS summer university, which opens Thursday in Blois.
“We refuse to participate in consultations whose sole objective is to fracture the NFP.” “The socialists will not be the auxiliaries of Macronism,” insisted the first secretary, Olivier Faure, in an interview with Libération.
A demonstration on September 7
The Blois meeting will be closely scrutinized at the Élysée, where a close friend of the president observes that “there are things moving” and “also notes that the PS is not calling for a demonstration on September 7”, unlike La France Insoumise.
The march, initiated by student union organizations, is to denounce “Emmanuel’s coup de force Macron“after his refusal to endorse the NFP’s choice.