French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday he would not appoint a prime minister until after the Paris Olympics, which end on August 11, to avoid “confusion” during the sporting event.
In a television interview with France 2, the French president dismissed the nomination of 37-year-old civil servant Lucie Castet as prime minister, put forward moments earlier by the left-wing New Front Popular coalition, saying there was “no majority” on the left in the French National Assembly (parliament).
“Until mid-August, we will focus on the games and then, from then on (…), my responsibility will be to appoint a prime minister and give him the task of forming a government and bringing all the parties together,” he said. “We have as many people as possible to allow him to work and ensure stability,” said Emmanuel Macron.
The left-wing New Popular Front coalition earlier announced it had reached an agreement to nominate Lucie Castet, a senior civil servant who has made a name for herself in defending public services, as its candidate for prime minister of France.
Lucie Castet, who has also fought against tax fraud and organized crime, will be “fully committed in the government she forms” to the four parties in the coalition – the Socialist Party, the French Communist Party, the Ecologists and France Insubordinate (LFI, in French) – as indicated in a joint statement issued by the New Popular Front.
Although Castet’s name is still relatively unknown to the French public, the statement by the four leftist forces also highlighted the candidate’s “active struggle against extending her retirement to 64” and her profile as a union activist.
Lucie Castets is not a member of any of the New Popular Front parties. However, she was a candidate in the 2015 regional elections in Normandy on the Socialist Party list, which was led at the time by Nicolas Meyer-Rossignol.
In an interview with Agence France-Presse, broadcast a few minutes after the New Popular Front announced its name, the candidate for the post of finance and procurement director for the Paris city council said she wanted to “cancel the pension reform,” according to the left-wing coalition’s program.
The announcement comes 16 days after the second round of early legislative elections, which gave a narrow victory to the left, without a majority, ahead of the centrist bloc led by French President Emmanuel Macron, and the far-right National Union party (RN, in its French abbreviation).
The leader of the LFI (Radical Left) party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, defended the formation of a new government, calling for the appointment of a prime minister from the left-wing coalition.
Emmanuel Macron has the power to nominate Lucie Castet, who can reject the offer if he deems it does not enjoy sufficient consensus in the French National Assembly.
The French President accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who is currently in charge of current state affairs, without setting a final date for the appointment of a new head of government, at a time when the country is preparing to host the Olympic Games, the opening ceremony of which is scheduled to take place on Friday.
News updated at 11:06pm with Emmanuel Macron’s comments on choosing a new prime minister
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