Keystone-SDA
After a short truce dedicated to the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral, French President Emmanuel Macron resumes his consultations on Monday in order to appoint a new Prime Minister. His camp urges him to act quickly.
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December 9, 2024 – 09:31
(Keystone-ATS) Coming from the right, former European Commissioner Michel Barnier, in office for only three months, was forced to resign from his post as head of government on Thursday, after the vote of censure in the National Assembly.
To find his successor, Mr. Macron, who benefited from an “enchanted” parenthesis this weekend with Notre-Dame, will receive in turn independent deputies, environmentalists and communists on Monday morning.
While it took him 51 days this summer to choose Michel Barnier, Mr. Macron is this time in a hurry to decide on his own side. Starting with his lifelong ally, the centrist François Bayrou, concerned by “a situation that no French citizen can accept to see persist or become more complex”.
Expected, among others, for Matignon, the boss of the MoDem party does not claim the position but almost: “If I can help us get out of all this, I will,” he said on Sunday .
“No compromise”
The President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, for her part pleaded for an appointment “in the coming hours”.
Its calculation is simple: “add up” the deputies of the “common base” (right and center), independents and the socialist party to obtain an absolute majority in the Assembly, so that there is “no more censorship possible “.
And to call for “a common action program” between these political groups, particularly around the question of care, agriculture or decentralization. But in practice, arithmetic comes up against multiple “red lines”.
The socialist Boris Vallaud, the ecologist Marine Tondelier and the social democrat Raphaël Glucksmann on Monday refuted the hypothesis of a nomination of François Bayrou, recalling that the centrist “did not win the legislative elections” and embodies “political continuity » by Emmanuel Macron.
The leader of the deputies of the right-wing party Les Républicains (LR, Laurent Wauquiez, for his part, recalled his “conditions”: “Neither (the radical left party) LFI in government, nor the program (of the left alliance ) of the New Popular Front”, to the point of asserting that a socialist Prime Minister is “not a credible hypothesis”.
However, this is precisely what the number one of the socialist party, Olivier Faure, is demanding, who came to the Elysée on Friday to propose “reciprocal concessions” to the President of the Republic, who has already granted him meetings with environmentalists and the communists.
But this start of opening aroused the ire of LFI, which refused the invitation to the Elysée and investigated the disloyalty trial of their allies all weekend.
“There is no possible compromise with Emmanuel Macron’s economic policy,” said the head of the LFI deputies, Mathilde Panot, pointing to “a clear desire by those in power to fracture the NFP.”
“Special law”
At the other end of the political spectrum, the far-right National Rally (RN) party remains on the lookout. Not invited to the Elysée, its president Jordan Bardella is already asking “to be received with Marine Le Pen” by the future Prime Minister “so as to be able to express very clearly (their) red lines”, which have “not varied” : purchasing power, security, immigration and proportional voting.
Arbitrator of censorship of the Barnier government, the party warns in advance: “You cannot act as if we were not there”.
The pressure to appoint a new head of government is also linked to the financial situation of the country. With a deficit this year which should exceed 6% of GDP, France displays the worst performance of the Twenty-Seven with the exception of Romania, very far from the 3% ceiling authorized by the EU.
While the resigning government had set itself the objective of reducing the public deficit to 5% of GDP next year, the 2025 draft budget could not be voted on due to censorship.
Promised last week by Mr. Macron, the “special law” allowing the state apparatus to function in the absence of promulgation of a budget on January 1 is “ready”, assured Monday morning the Minister of the Budget resigned Laurent Saint-Martin, adding that it would be enough to bring together a council of ministers for the text to be presented.
