Leftists will not join new round of consultations after Macron vetoes its PM candidate

Several French left-wing parties will not join the new round of consultations that President Emmanuel Macron announced on Tuesday after he refused to appoint their candidate Lucie Castets as prime minister, sparking outrage in a move the coalition – which received the most deputies – calls shameful. The Elysée rejected Castets because “a government based only on the program and parties proposed by the New Popular Front coalition would be immediately denounced by all the other groups.”

Socialists and environmentalists have refused to attend consultations this Tuesday, joining the Elysée plan not to call the main force of the progressive New Popular Front coalition, La Francia Insumissa (LFI). “I refuse to participate in an imitation of democracy,” Olivier Faure, first secretary of the Socialist Party, said in an interview on France 2 channel this morning.

“Now he tells the French they voted wrong”

Faure believes Macron’s refusal to appoint a prime minister from the political bloc that won the most seats in the recent legislative election represents “a democratic problem.” “What really happens is that what (Macron) doesn’t want is that, in order to implement the New Popular Front program, we repeal last year’s pension reform,” he said.

Marine Tondelier, secretary general of the EELV environmental party, has accused Macron of “drifting liberal” for refusing to hand over the keys to government to the political faction with the most seats in the National Assembly. Tondelier has announced that he will call “mobilizations” of protests, although he stressed that they will be “peaceful”, according to what he told public radio FranceInfo.

Castets himself has admitted feeling “anger” because the president called early elections “without consultation, something that nobody understood”, and after more than a month “he told the French that it was of no use, that they had voted wrong”, as stated on FranceInter radio station.

The Elysée announced late Monday afternoon that, having concluded political consultations with the heads of the main parliamentary parties, Macron would not appoint castettes and would resume meetings with the parties.

Elysée sources have specified that neither the LFI nor the far-left Marine Le Pen and her allies – considered by the president to be outside the Republican arc – have been invited to the new round.

One of Macron’s main allies, François Bayrou, leader of the centrist Modem party, has assured that the current situation is “not a complete blockade.” Bayrou has justified Macron’s rejection of the left-wing prime minister by saying that, according to the presidential camp, the program of the New Popular Front coalition is in fact that of La France Insoumise.

The Elysee believes that “stability advises against an NFP government”.

The Elysée assured that “a government based solely on the program and parties proposed by the majority of deputies, in alliance with the New Popular Front, would be immediately denounced by all the other groups.” He said in a statement that “the institutional stability of our country advises that this option not be adopted.” That text also said that Macron “opens a new cycle of dialogue with party leaders and personalities distinguished by their experience in the service of the State.”

This rejection is due to the fact that the NFP “has not proposed ways to collaborate with other political forces”, as other political formations have done, says the Élysée, including the groups that make up Macronism.

Without the additional support, the 193 delegates the NFP has held since legislative elections in early summer will not be enough to fend off potential motions of censure, as they are far from an absolute majority of 289 seats in the National Assembly.