French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday rejected a push by a left-wing alliance to name a new prime minister after snap elections.
Instead, he insisted that parties in a fractured parliament must come together to form a broad coalition after the Paris Olympics.
“Of course we need to be concentrated on the Games until mid-August,” Macron told broadcaster France 2.
“From then… it will be my responsibility to name a prime minister and entrust them with the task of forming a government, with the broadest backing possible,” he said.
Who is the left’s candidate?
Just an hour before Macron spoke in a televised interview, France‘s leftist New Popular Front (NPF) coalition, which won the most seats in parliament in this month’s election, proposed financial crime expert Lucie Castets as its candidate for prime minister.
Castets is director of finance and purchasing at Paris City Hall. She graduated in 2013 from the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, France’s elite school for civil servants. But she has no background in party politics.
When asked about Castets, Macron told France 2: “This is not the issue. The name is not the issue. The issue is: Which majority can emerge at the (National) Assembly?”
“Until mid-August, we’re in no position to change things, because it would create disorder,” Macron added. The Paris Olympics, which begin this week and run through August 11, pose a major logistical and security challenge for France.
Why is France in a political crisis?
France has been in a state of parliamentary deadlock since the snap election.
No party won an outright majority in the lower house of parliament, which is instead broadly divided into three blocs: the leftist New Popular Front, which won the most seats in the National Assembly; Macron’s centrist allies; and the far-right National Rally of Marine Le Pen.
The four parties in the leftist NPF — the hard-left France Unbowed, the Socialists, the Greens and the Communists — have been wrangling for weeks over who should be put forward as prime minister.
Macron, who has a presidential mandate until 2027, has the final say over who is appointed prime minister. But that person would would need enough support from lawmakers to avoid a no-confidence vote.
dh/jsi (AP, AFP, Reuters)