After 51 days of waiting and multiple U-turns, Emmanuel Macron has finally named his Prime Minister. Michel Barnier is responsible for succeeding Gabriel Attal and forming a government, while trying to pursue a policy that will allow him to have a sufficient majority in the National Assembly, in particular to avoid being overthrown by a motion of censure voted by the opposition.
But while waiting for the government to be appointed, Michel Barnier will work with the outgoing ministers, who will therefore remain in office until their successor is chosen. Michel Barnier will therefore temporarily have Gérald Darmanin as Minister of the Interior, Bruno Le Maire as Minister of the Economy and Rachida Dati as Minister of Culture, all from LR, like him.
No time limit in the Constitution
A period during which 17 of the resigning ministers will therefore continue to combine their position as MP with that of minister, such as Gérald Darmanin, Marc Fesneau and Agnès Pannier-Runacher; a situation which is controversial.
This temporary situation could last for some time, since the Constitution does not specify any deadline for the composition of the government. “On the proposal of the Prime Minister, he (the President, editor’s note) appoints the other members of the Government and terminates their functions,” the Constitution states very soberly.
No government before the end of the Paralympic Games?
The interminable wait for the appointment of the new Prime Minister could therefore be repeated while waiting for the composition of the government, especially since the resumption of work in the Assembly is scheduled for Tuesday, October 1, unless the Head of State accedes to the requests of the RN and the PCF for an extraordinary session to be held in Parliament.
Furthermore, it is hard to imagine the Minister of Sports and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Amélie Oudéa-Castera, being replaced before the end of the events on September 8. A wait of several days before the composition of the government is far from being an exception.
The record is set at 8 days
While most Prime Ministers reveal their ministerial team on the day or even the day after their appointment, in 1962, Georges Pompidou waited eight days to reveal the composition of his team. In 1988, in the midst of a relative majority, Michel Rocard took 5 days to announce the composition of his team.
Gabriel Attal had appointed his government in two stages. Three days after his appointment with an initial list of 12 ministers and three deputy ministers, completed by 20 additional names four weeks later.
Under Macron, a delay that is getting longer
Since the election of Emmanuel Macron to the Élysée, the trend has been towards a slight increase in the average time it takes for the Prime Minister to form his government: Édouard Philippe took two days to form his first government in 2017, Jean Castex three days in 2020 and finally four days for Élisabeth Borne in May 2022.
Previously, in 2012, Jean-Marc Ayrault had barely waited 24 hours, just like Jean-Pierre Raffarin after the re-election of Jacques Chirac in 2002 or François Fillon in 2007, in the wake of Nicolas Sarkozy’s victory. With one advantage: they all knew from the presidential campaign that they would be appointed Prime Minister and had already been able to think about his casting, which is far from being the case for Michel Barnier.
