Unknown to the general public just a few weeks ago, Lucie Castets is the New Popular Front candidate for the post of Prime Minister.
Designated as the NFP candidate for Matignon, the left-wing alliance intends to impose Lucie Castets on Emmanuel Macroneven if the president still refuses to do so. Very involved since July 23, the date on which the New Popular Front designated her as its candidate for the post of Prime Minister, Lucie Castets has multiplied statements in the media as well as trips to France to make herself known to the general public and reaffirm the NFP’s government project.
The New Popular Front, with which she has managed to gain consensus, presented her in a press release as “a leader of associative struggles for the defense and promotion of public services, actively engaged in the fight of ideas against retirement at 64, a senior civil servant who has worked on the repression of tax fraud and financial crime, from civil society.”
Similarities with the Socialist Party
Lucie Castets is not a political activist or member of one of the left-wing union parties. However, she was a member of the Socialist Party between 2008 and 2011 and was part of the centre-left think tank “Point d’ancre” in the 2010s. She also worked within the independent movement “Besoin de gauche”, led by Pierre Moscovici, former socialist Minister of the Economy and former European Commissioner for Economic Affairs. She also worked with Manon Aubry, MEP for La France Insoumise, when the latter devoted her action to the fight against tax fraud.
The economist describes herself as a left-wing activist, but assures that she represents “no tendency” or party leadership within the New Popular Front, contenting herself with wanting to implement the common program of the union of the left. The fact remains that it was indeed the PS, to which she was close, that put her name on the table less than 24 hours before the announcement of her nomination. “I am not an activist in a party, I am left-wing, I am committed, I have no particular label within these parties. That is why, I believe, they nominated me,” she justified herself, Thursday July 25 on BFMTV.
On the personal side, the candidate of the New Popular Front wanted to say “who she was” in an interview with Paris Match. She came out there by revealing that she was married to a woman and the mother of a two-and-a-half-year-old child. She thus declared that she wanted to “find a balance between protecting her family, her wife and their child”. Criticized about her time at the ENA, the school of the elite, she retorted that she “had nothing to prove”. “I am comfortable in my own shoes, people will discover that, or not. Being an ENA graduate is part of my reality”, she explained.
Taxation, city of Paris… Who is Lucie Castets?
Normandy native of Caen, 37-year-old economist, now director of finance and purchasing for the city of Paris, Lucie Castets already has a great career. She was also an advisor to Anne Hidalgo on the budget, in particular the finances dedicated to the ecological transition. Her action as director of the budget, finance and purchasing of the capital, a position she has held since December 2023, is praised by the mayor of Paris. “She is sensitive to the general interest. I take on competent collaborators or directors. And who feel concerned. Lucie is one of them”. Her detractors point out that the capital’s debt has increased from 8.2 billion in 2023 to 8.8 billion in 2024.
A graduate of Sciences Po and the London School of Economics, and a former student of the ENA, Lucie Castets held her first position at the General Directorate of the Public Treasury before joining Tracfin, the anti-money laundering unit of the Ministry of the Economy and Finance.
Lucie Castets is a tax expert, committed to the fight against tax fraud. She is also the spokesperson for the civil servants’ collective ‘Nos Services publics’. The founder of this association, Arnaud Bontemps, sent a message to AFP to highlight her “remarkable professional career in the service of the State and local authorities, with strong commitments to tax justice, the fight against tax evasion, (…) schools, hospitals, social justice”.