French President Emmanuel Macron has said he will not agree to a government led by the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) alliance, which won the most seats in last month’s legislative election.
Macron said France needed institutional stability and the left could not win a vote of confidence in parliament.
The NFP, which nominated relatively unknown civil servant Lucie Castes as its candidate for prime minister, responded by calling for protests and the impeachment of the French president.
Macron – whose centrists were relegated to second place in July – said he would begin new consultations with party leaders on Tuesday and called on the left to cooperate with other political forces.
No group managed to win a majority in the election, with the NFP winning more than 190 seats, Macron’s centrist Ensemble alliance 160 and the far-right National Assembly (RN) 140.
Since then, a caretaker government has brought France, including during the Paris Olympics, to the ire of the NFP.
Macron has been negotiating a new government since the election and has said he will continue to do so.
“It is my responsibility that the country is neither blocked nor weakened,” he said in a statement on Monday.
“The Socialist Party, the Greens and the Communists have not yet proposed ways to cooperate with other political forces. Now it’s up to them to do it,” he added.
But the president conspicuously failed to mention one of the main elements that make up the NFP, the hard-left movement France Unbowed (LFI).
The LFI reacted angrily to the president’s words, with national coordinator Manuel Bompard describing them as an “unacceptable anti-democratic coup”.
Communist leader Fabien Roussel told BFM TV that Macron would cause a “serious crisis in our country”, while Greens leader Marine Tondelier wrote in X that three-quarters of French people wanted a “political break with Macronism”.
The left-wing coalition has previously refused to participate in future consultations unless Ms Castes’ candidacy for prime minister is discussed.
However, the 37-year-old economist was not elected and is considered an unlikely choice for president.
Both Ensemble and RN have pledged to reject NFP applicants.
After meeting Macron for talks on Monday, RN leaders Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardela described the NFP as a “danger” for France.
Other names being discussed in political circles include former Socialist Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and Xavier Bertrand, who is a regional leader of the centre-right Republicans.
dnes.bg
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