Exit civil society, priority to a “political solution”: Emmanuel Macron turned successively to the right and the left on Tuesday to find out which of Xavier Bertrand or Bernard Cazeneuve can survive immediate censure in the event of his appointment to Matignon.
While ruling out a decision on Tuesday evening, the entourage of the head of state thought they could see a way out, while the consultations drag on 58 days after the legislative elections which led to an unprecedented political crisis.
According to a close friend of the president, the former socialist Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and the head of Hauts-de-France Xavier Bertrand, a champion of the social right, received in turn the day before, already ensure “more stability” than Lucie Castets, the candidate of the New Popular Front, rejected by Emmanuel Macron.
“There are reservations towards them, red lines of substance and method, but not necessarily immediate censorship,” we believe from the same source.
With this possible opening, the President of the Republic continues to test these two names with the parties, and believes that he will “rather” opt for “a political solution”. The hypothesis of an appointment of the President of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council Thierry Beaudet, who seemed to be in the lead on Monday, has died.
Emmanuel Macron spoke in the afternoon with the socialists Olivier Faure and Boris Vallaud who told him that they wanted to decide on a program rather than on the casting.
Is the PS ready to commit to not censoring a government led by Bernard Cazeneuve?
The executives opposed to the leadership have pleaded for a green light for the man who left the party to denounce its alliance with La France Insoumise.
But the national office of the PS decided otherwise, rejecting on Tuesday evening any unconditional support for the former minister of François Hollande.
– Le RN censure Bertrand –
In addition to the socialists, the President of the Republic also contacted the other members of the NFP, which came out on top in the legislative elections but was far from an absolute majority. He spoke with the communists and the environmentalists, whose leader Marine Tondelier deplored “a poor spectacle” given by “a President of the Republic who consults but pretends to want everything to change, so that in fact nothing changes”.
On the other hand, the LFI leaders refused to answer the phone: Mathilde Panot and Manuel Bompard denounced “these improvisations” and “the desperate attempts to divide” the left-wing alliance.
Finally, Emmanuel Macron could speak on Tuesday evening with the head of the National Rally deputies, Marine Le Pen.
The far-right party had previously dampened the Bertrand option, whose popularity had skyrocketed in the morning… before falling again in the face of several barrages of criticism.
The leaders of the Republicans have opened the door to his nomination, after having stuck to their refusal of any participation in a government or a coalition. The leader of the Republican Right deputies Laurent Wauquiez explained to his troops that he wanted to show “good will”, while “noting that the risk of censure probably did not make the option viable”, according to a participant in an internal meeting.
“It would be a lack of respect towards the millions of French people who expressed themselves at the ballot box (…) So we are censoring,” the National Rally announced without delay.
Xavier Bertrand, who often boasts of having beaten Marine Le Pen twice in the regional elections, is “the worst option”, “he is the first on the list who can be censored, he does not respect his opponents, spends his time insulting RN voters”, MP Sébastien Chenu said on franceinfo.
The RN also considered a Cazeneuve government “impossible” because it “would pursue a left-wing policy”.
– A 3rd name? –
On the other hand, the party with the flame “would accept a technical government, which would deal with current affairs” and would have the mandate “to implement proportional representation in the legislative elections” in order “to achieve a majority in a year”, a new dissolution not being possible before the summer of 2025.
Will the head of state decide on Wednesday for one of these political bigwigs, resurgences of an “old world” that he wanted to turn the page on in 2017? “A third political name pulled out of a hat cannot be ruled out,” warns an advisor to the executive.
But time is running out. The 2025 budget must be tabled in Parliament by October 1 at the latest. And the Ministry of Finance has just announced a new deficit slippage, expected at 5.6% of GDP this year without new savings measures.
Beware of “inaction”, warns Edouard Philippe. Emmanuel Macron’s former Prime Minister has chosen to speed things up: on Tuesday evening, he declared himself a candidate for the 2027 presidential election.
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