France faced difficult discussions between parties on Monday to name a new government, after the left led by Jean-Luc Melenchon unexpectedly snatched victory from the far right Marine Le Pen in the Parliamentary electionalthough without achieving an absolute majority.
Faced with the prevailing uncertainty, the French president, Emmanuel Macronhe asked his prime minister Gabriel Attalwho resigned, to continue in office “for the moment to ensure stability”, less than three weeks from the Paris Olympics.
Voters responded by giving a new balance of power to the three blocs that emerged from the 2022 elections: left, centre-right and far-right. However, none of them achieved an absolute majority of 289 deputies.
The left-wing coalition New Popular Front (NFP) won about 180 seats, followed by Macron’s centre-right alliance (about 160) and the far-right party National Grouping (RN) and its allies (more than 140).
The leaders of the left-wing coalition have assured that they are ready to govern. Macron “should officially ask the NFP today to give him the name of a prime minister,” declared the leader of the ecologists, Marine Tondelier.
The head of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faureadvocated that the left-wing front present a candidate for prime minister “during the week” and that this candidate be chosen “by consensus or by vote.”
But to stay in power they need a majority, and within this coalition, which ranges from social democrats to anti-capitalists, its members disagree on possible parliamentary alliances.
La France Insoumise (LFI), the radical wing of the NFP, and its leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, crystallize part of the tensions. Faced with the rejection generated by the possibility of him running for prime minister, the MP Mathilde Panot He stressed on Monday that he is “not at all disqualified.”
“We’re going to have to behave like adults,” he said on Sunday. Raphael Glucksmanna symbol of the social democratic wing of the NFP, for whom “dialogue” is “a change in political culture” in a France that is not used to parliamentarism.
The right-wing party The Republicans (LR)), which managed to keep around 60 deputies after one party made a pact with the extreme right, has already assured that “there will be neither coalition nor compromise” on its part.
The government raises the ghost of the financial crisis
After a tense campaign in which Macron accused LFI of being “anti-Semitic” and “anti-parliamentary”, his centre-right alliance is finding it difficult to support a government that includes the party or even reach agreements with it.
The left’s program also includes several red lines for the ruling alliance and for the right, such as Repeal of the unpopular pension reform of 2023 and the approval of a tax on large fortunes.
Following the election results, the Paris Stock Exchange traded on Monday with slight declines. The CAC40 index fell by 0.49%.
The Minister of Economy, Bruno Le Mairewarned about the risk of “financial crisis” and “slump“which raises “the new political scenario, without absolute majorities. But a new government could take some time to arrive.
Macron has already announced that he will wait to see how the “structure” is National Assemblywhich will be installed on Thursday 18th, to decide who to appoint as the next prime minister, according to the presidency.
Source: Ambito
