The French president, Emmanuel Macronmeets this Tuesday at the Elysee Palace starting at 1:00 p.m., local time, with the main leaders of the French parties – except those of the far right and the radical left– with the goal of forming a government that lasts at least 10 months.
Faced with the serious French political crisis -with a government that has been in office for almost a week after the motion of censure against the conservative Prime Minister Michel Barnier -, Macron wants to put on the table the forces he considers of the “republican arch” to get an executive who survives a new motion of censure.
In one National Assembly irreconcilable divided into three blocks (left, macronists and extreme right), the president wants to attract the deputies who are loyal to him (166), the 66 socialists, 47 conservatives, the 38 environmentalists, 21 regionalists and 17 communists.
The objective is to achieve a prime minister that it can resist in the Assembly at least until well into the summer, which is when constitutionally new legislative sessions can be held.
Not even the extreme right Marine Le Pen National Group and its allies (140 deputies) nor the radical left of La Francia Insumisa (LFI, 71 seats) will be at the meeting on the “general interest pact.”
“They are methods of zero elegance and lack of respect for our 11 million voters.“, he declared in BFMTV Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s dolphin and president of the National Group.
The supplies of Jean-Luc Mélenchonfor their part, have excluded themselves from these conversations, which has strained the relationship with two of their allies of the New Popular Front (NFP): the socialists and the communists, open to agreements with the Macronist center and the right.
The other members of that coalition, the environmentalists, have ruled out entering a government that includes the Macronists or the conservatives of Los Republicanos (LR).
Although the Greens are excluded from this pact of “general interest”, an agreement that includes the Macronists, socialists, conservatives, regionalists and communists would be mathematically possible. In total, it would have 310 supports, above the 289 that mark the absolute majority.
However, without the Greens, the pact could weaken the Socialist Party electorally.
Macron’s office He said that only those who “showed that they were within a framework of compromise” were called to the talks this Tuesday, apparently excluding the far-right party. National Group (RN) and the extreme left Francia Unrended (LFI).
Reaching a compromise between the center-left, the centrists and the conservatives will be complicated, since all of them have been clashing fiercely since the first presidential victory of Macron in 2017.
The first talks would aim to “move towards an agreement on the method” to reach a consensus, the Elysée indicated.
Macron’s call to a broad-based meeting suggests that a new executive will not be formed quickly, disappointing calls to act quickly from allies including Parliament Speaker Yael Braun-Pivet.
“Each of us will have to take a step towards the other,” the head of the Green Party had said on Monday, Marine Tondelierupon arrival to meet with Macron adding that it was up to the president “to offer something that is not simply a continuation of his policies.”
Some have called for Macron, 46, to resign and call for new presidential elections.
But last week, a defiant Macron said he planned to serve out the remainder of his term, pledging to produce “30 months of useful action” and pledging to name a new prime minister in the “coming days.”
The weekend reopening of the notre dame cathedral of Paris, remodeled after a devastating fire in 2019, offered a brief respite from the political crisis as it hosted world leaders, including the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trumpand the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky.
Macron is now under enormous pressure to form a government that can survive a no-confidence vote and pass a budget for next year in an attempt to limit political and economic turmoil.
(With information from EFE and AFP)
