France: the Prime Minister will be named Friday morning, according to the Elysée

Emmanuel Macron will not meet the promised deadline: the prime minister will finally be appointed on Friday morning, a sign of the difficulty in finding a personality likely to last longer than the ephemeral Michel Barnier and to have a budget adopted, in a fractured political landscape .

As soon as the presidential plane landed near Paris, returning from a visit to Poland, the Élysée announced that the nomination would not take place on Thursday evening. “He is concluding his consultations,” those around him told AFP, without further explanation.

After first considering announcing his choice the day after December 4, the day of the historic censorship of the Barnier government, the head of state promised on Tuesday afternoon a prime minister “within forty-eight hours” . An oath made to the leaders of formations in an arc going from the communists to the right, united in search of compromise and in the absence of the National Rally (RN) and La France insoumise.

Ultimately, the choice turns out to be even more difficult than expected.

“They are in the trap”, there is a “barrage for each name”, deplores someone close to Emmanuel Macron. “No one is in agreement around the president,” he adds, hoping that the latter surprises everyone with an unexpected profile.

What name to extricate the country from an unprecedented political crisis? François Bayrou, the faithful centrist ally who always bides his time and this time seemed the favorite? Or Bernard Cazeneuve, to reward the pledges given by the Socialist Party, some of whose deputies, including ex-president François Hollande, dub the former prime minister at the last minute?

Unless to these two tenors, the Head of State prefers a team leader less known to the French.

Thursday afternoon, several RN deputies, including executives Sébastien Chenu and Jean-Philippe Tanguy, successively marked on Wednesday. “Roland Lescure? Motion of censure,” wrote the spokesperson for the lepéniste group Laure Lavalette, before deleting her message.

Parliamentary sources confirmed that the name of this social-liberal deputy of the French established in North America, who had criticized the weight of Marine Le Pen’s party in the birth of the Barnier government, was indeed on the table.

Taking the hypothesis “seriously”, the entourage of the resigning Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, warned that it would be a “big problem” for his party, Les Républicains (LR), because Roland Lescure “carries a line reverse” on immigration.

“Non-censorship pact”

The president has tried to ensure in recent days that the future Executive would benefit from a “non-censorship pact” notably from the Socialist Party, or even the Ecologists. François Bayrou has for a long time been proposing to the Head of State a government of key figures capable of convincing enough deputies, without waiting for a formal agreement between party leaders. The first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure publicly refused the Bayrou option on Wednesday, pleading for a left-wing prime minister.

“The French want a little enthusiasm, momentum, breath, something new,” launched the boss of the Ecologists Marine Tondelier on France 2 on Thursday, calling on Emmanuel Macron “to get out of his comfort zone “. She rejected those who embody the “past” in her eyes: François Bayrou but also the ex-socialist Bernard Cazeneuve, whom the president had formally consulted in September without however naming him.

The one who became a lawyer “is in the same state of mind as before, worried about the seriousness of the situation, and aware of the impossibility of escaping if we call on him”, slips a deputy close to the last first Minister of François Hollande. On the right wing of the macronie, we would prefer the irremovable Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu, very close to the president, or his colleague Catherine Vautrin. Some also fear that LR, after having participated in the Barnier adventure, will shy away from a government more marked on the left.

The Sarkozy shadow

On the right, François Bayrou also arouses a certain hostility: all day Wednesday, the corridors buzzed with a veto from the former head of state Nicolas Sarkozy, who cannot digest his vote for François Hollande in the face of him during the 2012 presidential election.

In any case, there is an emergency. The fall of Michel Barnier, overthrown by deputies in an unprecedented censorship since 1962, leaves the country without a budget for 2025. A special bill to avoid paralysis of the State was presented Wednesday to the Council of Ministers and begins its express parliamentary route which should allow its adoption next week. But it does not allow the renewal of many old or new provisions favorable to the French and businesses.

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