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Government formation: start of the last-chance meeting at Matignon
White smoke in sight? Michel Barnier began a decisive meeting Thursday afternoon at Matignon with the political forces likely to participate in his government, assuring that these were the “last” consultations, despite tensions including with Emmanuel Macron. The meeting between the Prime Minister and the leaders of parties or groups consulted so far, which began around 3:00 p.m., aims according to Matignon at the “rapid formation” of a government. Hervé Morin, president of the Les Centristes party, hoped upon arriving that “all this would succeed”. After him, Marc Fesneau and Maud Gatel (MoDem), Hervé Marseille (UDI), Franck Riester (Renaissance party), Laurent Wauquiez and Bruno Retailleau (Les Républicains), Gabriel Attal (Ensemble pour la République group) and Edouard Philippe (Horizons) entered the courtyard of Matignon. Michel Barnier also met separately on Thursday morning with the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, then with the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher. In a message to the deputies of his group, Gabriel Attal indicated that he was going to ask the Prime Minister “what are the broad outlines of the action that he intends to lead with his future government, and how its architecture will embody the republican union that our country needs so much”. A telephone conversation is planned with the elected representatives of the centrist Liot group, currently gathered in Corsica. Tensions with the Macronists up to the president, ambitions of the LR, the left’s rejection: two weeks after his appointment to Matignon, the pitfalls continue to accumulate for Michel Barnier. Tensions have particularly emerged at the top of the executive. Emmanuel Macron, who assures that he does not want to intervene in the composition of the government, received Michel Barnier on Tuesday and again on Wednesday. According to the stories that are filtering through, their lunch on Tuesday went badly. A close friend of the head of state recalled that the task assigned to the Prime Minister was “to move towards national unity and respect the balances”. But “the account is not there” for the president, according to a leader of his camp. He is said to have told Michel Barnier that the right could not have two major posts like Finance and the Interior, only one or the other, annoying his interlocutor, reports an LR executive. – “Nothing to lose” – It was “only a first list, the basis of a negotiation”, tempered the spokesperson for the LR deputies, Vincent Jeanbrun on Thursday on BFMTV/RMC. “On the names mentioned” as well as “on the balance of sensibilities, this in no way represents the government project desired” by Michel Barnier, Matignon specified on Wednesday evening. The risk is that no one will be satisfied with the final result. “When Michel Barnier seeks to expand to the left, he talks about taxes but veers to the right and the center,” summarizes the executive of the presidential camp. Michel Barnier “wants to form an RPR government” and “there is resistance” in the majority, but “not so much from Macron” who “does not want a crisis” and could validate the team, believes a leading member of the majority. The Macronist camp “invents the idea that LR wants everything, but that is not Barnier’s style at all. I am convinced that he will make a reasonable and responsible proposal,” deciphers an LR senatorial source. Before warning: “I believe that this time, it will be +this proposal or I leave+. He has nothing to lose, he is 73 years old, he does not expect anything behind. No one is required to do the impossible.” The frictions rose a notch on Wednesday with a series of missed appointments. A first meeting between Michel Barnier and the group of Macronist deputies Ensemble pour la République, which is demanding “clarification” in particular in tax matters, was postponed, before a second with the right was in turn cancelled. The Prime Minister explained that he had discovered a “very serious budgetary situation” that deserves “better than soundbites”. The appetite of the LR, who obtained Matignon with only 47 deputies, but have become pivotal, is annoying in the Macronist camp and on the left. – “Regime crisis” – Time is running out on the budget, the timetable for which was greatly delayed this year by the dissolution and very late appointment of a Prime Minister. Matignon finally transmitted on Thursday to the Finance Committees of the National Assembly and the Senate “the budget documents drawn up by the resigning government” with a view to the Finance Bill for 2025. These documents are, normally, available during the summer. The tenant of Matignon is also struggling to find left-wing figures, with whom he has met with several refusals. And Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally deputies, stated in Le Parisien that she did not want Xavier Bertrand, her opponent in Hauts-de-France, or Eric Dupond-Moretti, the outgoing Minister of Justice, to be in her team. This inextricable situation led some elected officials to say that her mission had become impossible. “There may be a regime crisis if we don’t all make the effort to find solutions,” said LR deputy Olivier Marleix.pol-are-arz/hr/gvy
