For several days, the name of former socialist minister Bernard Cazeneuve has been circulating while Emmanuel Macron has still not appointed a new Prime Minister and is looking for a personality capable of leading a sort of coalition government.
Former Socialist Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve will be received by Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace this Monday, September 2, early in the morning, BFMTV learned from his entourage. Two former presidents, François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, will also be received on Monday, we learned shortly after. At the end of the day, another name was revealed: that of Xavier Bertrand, who will also be received.
A month and a half after the resignation of Gabriel Attal’s government, in reaction to the defeat of the presidential camp in the legislative elections, the head of state has still not appointed a new Prime Minister.
While the united left of the New Popular Front, which came out on top in terms of the number of seats, proposed the name of Lucie Castets, Emmanuel Macron quickly dismissed the hypothesis.
The name of Bernard Cazeneuve has therefore been circulating for several days, while the president has warned that he wants to appoint a person capable of creating an open government with the “republican” forces, from which he excludes LFI and the RN.
LFI to vote on a motion of censure
Although a former member of the Socialist Party, the idea of installing Bernard Cazeneuve as Prime Minister is divisive. For example, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo considered the hypothesis “credible and serious” this Saturday.
“I have a lot of friendship for Bernard Cazeneuve. With him, we would have a real cohabitation, and that is what is needed, unless we want to ignore the vote of the French people,” she said in the columns of Ouest-France.
Conversely, La France Insoumise has already announced that its deputies would vote a motion of censure against a government led by the former socialist minister.
Cazeneuve opposed to the NFP
Even within the Socialist Party, the idea is not unanimous. The party’s first secretary, Olivier Faure, remains faithful to the line of the left-wing alliance resulting from the legislative elections and supports Lucie Castets’ candidacy for Matignon, like the rest of the New Popular Front.
Last June, after the dissolution of the National Assembly decided by Emmanuel Macron, Bernard Cazeneuve declared himself opposed to this new united left alliance.
The former minister, who has never hidden his hostility towards La France Insoumise, preached for his part for a union “between the democratic and republican formations of the left”, thus excluding LFI.
Anne Saurat-Dubois with Salomé Robles
