At the Élysée, they arrived in a single cluster. The New Popular Front as one man, or rather as one woman: Lucie Castets, at the head of the procession, the candidate for the post of Prime Minister designated by the left-wing coalition just before the start of the Paris Olympic Games. She was not invited by Emmanuel Macron, but the pen-heads of the NFP demanded her presence. So, the president accepted. She was the first to speak to the cameras when arriving at the Château, and she will address the same ones when leaving. And it was above all she who chatted with the host of the place, in the Salon vert, the one on the first floor, the one for crises, the one next to the office of the President of the Republic.
They left the Élysée Palace almost too confident. They who were initially convinced that the president would not appoint Lucie Castets, left the Palace with the strange impression that he no longer ruled out this option. They should have trusted their first instinct. A few minutes earlier, as they were leaving the Salon Vert and Emmanuel Macron, a participant asked, one last time: “So when will you appoint a Prime Minister?” The president promised: “Quickly.” The NFP emissary returned the ball: “Time is running out.” And with time, everything goes away except… the “rebellious question.” Because it is the only one that counts in the head of state’s mind. An hour later, while having lunch with his allies from the central bloc, he asked them if they intended to censor a government made up of rebels. All, unanimously, answered in the affirmative. He will ask the same question to Laurent Wauquiez’s Republicans in the afternoon, who will answer: “we will block La France Insoumise.” A close friend of Emmanuel Macron explains: “if we acknowledge that we cannot have LFI ministers, this clearly excludes Lucie Castets, since she does not achieve the objective of institutional stability.”
However, according to one guest, the meeting between the left and Emmanuel Macron had all the makings of a “job interview” between the president and Lucie Castets. The tone was courteous, but firm. The cameras were far away, the grand gestures had no effect and the language seemed quite useless. Only the head of state asked a series of questions, with a smile on his lips: “I am receiving you here collectively even though I know that some of you want to dismiss me…” A nod to the last throes of a coalition of the left around the impeachment procedure launched by La France Insoumise last week, without the opinion of their socialist, ecologist and communist partners, who themselves had little taste for the coarse manners of their allies. A way of reminding us that the NFP coalition is as tenacious in appearance as it is fragile behind the scenes. Facing him, the two rebels Manuel Bompard and Mathilde Panot do not flinch.
Accept a little more opening towards the central block
Lucie Castets, for her part, repeats the credo of her own, already seven weeks old: “We are ready to govern.” It was necessary to repeat it, looking Emmanuel Macron in the eye. Such is the constitutional logic, she added. “You do not have the guarantee of stability,” retorts Macron, he who seemed to immediately close the door on the senior civil servant. He is testing her. If he admits that the New Popular Front came out on top in the elections, that the voters in the early legislative elections demanded “a change of political direction”, this does not mean that a government of the left will be able to hold and reform. The threat of a motion of censure hangs in the air. “I am aware that I do not have an absolute majority, but parliament will be the place where these majorities are built, text by text,” admits Lucie Castets, who even gives assurances to the president. “I am ready to meet with the political forces concerned to discuss priorities from the New Popular Front program,” she explains. She even goes against the words of the left before the summer, and in particular those of Jean-Luc Mélenchon who hammered home “the NFP program, the entire NFP program, nothing but the NFP program.” Manuel Bompard, who will repeat it word for word to the press as he leaves the Élysée, adds: “To build majorities text by text.” The project drawn up and quantified by the left would thus not be “exclusive.” Lucie Castets even says she is “ready to reinstate on the agenda a certain number of texts left pending by the dissolution,” starting with the question of the end of life or the draft orientation law for sovereignty in agricultural matters.
But how many elected members of the Republicans or Renaissance have already declared that they would censor any government that includes members of La France Insoumise? Moreover, does Lucie Castets intend to integrate members of Mélenchon’s movement into this government, asks Emmanuel Macron. “Yes,” the guests respond in unison. “He did not veto this question,” a participant in the meeting told L’Express. The head of the Élysée did not expect the Insoumis to have changed their tune, to the point of accepting a little more openness towards the central bloc, the former Macronist majority. To what extent? Is this the sign of the famous “stability”?
Another Prime Minister?
“Is it up to you to come up with this stability solution?” asks communist Fabien Roussel. Macron responds by citing the customs and traditions of the Constitution and its Article 8: “The President of the Republic appoints the Prime Minister.” There is the letter of the Constitution and there is the political situation, judges a plenipotentiary who considers, like his comrades, that too much time has passed since the elections, that a Prime Minister must be appointed “before Tuesday”. Emmanuel Macron listens, standing firm, and assesses the possibility of other options with his guests. And if it were not Lucie Castets, what government could they support? With whom would they be able to govern? A non-issue, Marine Tondelier will then judge. “It’s Lucie or nothing. There is no point in giving us other names, they are fictional names”, dismisses the leader of the Ecologists. Olivier Faure hammers home: “We will remain united, do not try to divide us.” Emmanuel Macron has a name in mind, but does not venture there in the face of the left, nor in the face of his allies in the central bloc at lunch, nor in the face of LR: Bernard Cazeneuve, a man of the left, more consensual in the eyes of the central bloc and the right but irritating for a part of the NFP. “It is an option that would make sense politically if the objective is to have a Prime Minister who does not gather a majority against him, slips a strategist of the Head of State. We are not in the quest for common points but we seek to avoid the point of tension.” Taking his reasoning further, our interlocutor imagines the central bloc being satisfied with this choice, just like the Republican right. Only one question nags at him: “Would the PS censor Cazeneuve?” On the left, nothing is impossible.
The host would have liked to continue the discussion, to raise with his guests the question of the budget, the sacrosanct budget that marks the beginning of the new political year. To vote against it is to be in the opposition. To approve it is to support the majority, relative or not. The annual draft finance bill (PLF) must be adopted and promulgated before January 1, 2025, and it must be submitted to parliament on October 1. Who will do what? And the cost of increasing the minimum wage? What about the budget wall? “This is not the place to go into detail or to draw up a budget program,” interrupted a guest, adding that the New Popular Front had noted in Gabriel Attal’s letter announcing a budget freeze and in various positions taken by the Modem on this subject “objects of consensus.”
So everything is fine then? Yes, no, a little… We don’t know anymore. Emmanuel Macron returns to the presence of LFI in a potential government led by Lucie Castets by indirect means. He thus questions himself on international issues, and in particular on the two most ardent conflicts of the moment: in Ukraine and in Gaza. Two subjects on which the positions taken by La France insoumise, and in particular by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, have provoked a crisis on the left, with the various parties having been at each other’s throats for months if not years on these two subjects. He knows that anything on this issue drives a wedge to the left, and is testing Lucie Castets again. “Are there elements of rupture in terms of foreign policy?” he asks. She assures him of “continuity” in the support for the Ukrainians in the face of Putin’s Russia and in the role of France in the Middle East, but admits two exceptions: “There will be an immediate recognition of the Palestinian State and more pugnacity (sic) in the resolution of the conflict in Gaza.”
A second round of consultations is planned for next week. If no political solution emerges, Emmanuel Macron is keeping in mind the “civil society” option to take a little more power away from political parties, at the risk of exposing himself even more in the event of failure. And then the specter of his resignation would return…
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