Former Socialist Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve will be received by Emmanuel Macron on Monday morning to discuss the conditions of an appointment to Matignon, almost two months after legislative elections which led to a National Assembly without a majority.
The announcement of this meeting consolidates Bernard Cazeneuve’s status as favourite and demonstrates an acceleration of the consultations led by Emmanuel Macron after 55 days of political crisis.
While his name has been circulating insistently during the week as a possible Prime Minister, “Bernard Cazeneuve is not asking for it, but if he does it is out of duty and to avoid additional difficulties for the country,” explained his entourage, who announced this meeting.
Emmanuel Macron’s entourage specified that this meeting was part of the continuation of the president’s consultations, who should also speak with his predecessors Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande.
The former Minister of the Interior, at the time of the November 2015 elections, and Prime Minister during the last months of François Hollande’s five-year term “is a responsible man of the left who will take into account the political but also economic situation of the country”added those close to him.
Emmanuel Macron is looking for a prime minister who will not be immediately censured by political forces in the National Assembly.
It is for this reason that he rejected the nomination of Lucie Castets, presented by the New Popular Front parties (LFI-PS-Ecologistes-PCF), a left-wing alliance which came out on top in the last legislative elections.
Although he is centre-left, the 61-year-old former socialist left the PS in 2022, opposed to the alliance with LFI within Nupes, and has a less divisive profile for Macronie, the right and the far right.
For Modem leader François Bayrou, Bernard Cazeneuve has fulfilled “two essential conditions: someone with experience and who has credibility with public opinion.” “The situation requires a fairly rapid resolution,” he pleaded on LCI.
“Bernard Cazeneuve is part of the list of profiles that seem to me to be able to bring people together beyond his camp, since no one holds the majority all by themselves”added the President of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet, guest of “Political Questions” on France Inter/France Télévisions/Le Monde
And her arrival at Matignon could fracture the socialists. She was thus described as “credible and serious” by the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo.
Censorship on the left
“Bernard Cazeneuve is not supported by any of the country’s four left-wing parties,” responded Manuel Bompard on BFMTV on Sunday. “The New Popular Front was built in a break with the policies of François Hollande, of whom Bernard Cazeneuve was Prime Minister. We will censure any government other than that of Lucie Castets,” he reaffirmed.
On the environmentalist side, hostility towards the former mayor of Cherbourg comes from his support for nuclear energy, and the memory of the death of activist Rémi Fraisse on the Sirvens dam during clashes with the police in 2014.
This meeting on Monday at the Elysée Palace de facto removes the hypothesis of a “Right-wing Prime Minister” for which former President Nicolas Sarkozy pleads. But the leaders of the Republicans, who want to arrive as opponents in the 2027 presidential election, refuse any coalition or participation in the future government.
It is still necessary for Emmanuel Macron and Bernard Cazeneuve to agree on the terms of their possible « cohabitation ».
According to his entourage, Bernard Cazeneuve will seek to ensure that the “conditions for normal, regular, transparent institutional functioning” are “reunited”not ruling out refusing an appointment to Matignon if this is not the case.
The unpopular reform of retirement at 64 is one of the sensitive subjects that will be discussed during this interview.
Xavier Bertrand also considered
In addition to Bernard Cazeneuve, Macron will also receive this Monday the president of Hauts-de-France, Xavier Bertrand, a member of the right-wing party Les Républicains whose name has been circulating for Matignon.
The one who had called for a “national emergency government” after the legislative elections, and wants to be the spokesperson for a social right, will go to the Elysée after another possible Prime Minister but from the centre-left, Bernard Cazeneuve, and after the former presidents François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy.
Note that time is running out for a new government as the 2025 state budget must be tabled in Parliament by October 1 at the latest. “No government will be able to exempt itself from continuing efforts to reduce the deficit,” judged the resigning Minister of Public Accounts Thomas Cazenave in Le Parisien Dimanche.
Before October 1, Parliament could be called into extraordinary session to hear a policy speech from a new prime minister.
