While waiting for the new legislature to be set up and the highly anticipated election of the next president of the National Assembly on Thursday, the New Popular Front has still not reached an agreement on a government team.
Unable to agree on a candidate for Matignon, the left struggles to overcome its differences: the Insoumis castigate the “systematic opposition” of the socialists, who now plan to turn towards civil society, while Gabriel Attal unites his troops at the start of a decisive week.
The PS not convinced by Huguette Bello
The name of Huguette Bello, president of La Réunion close to La France insoumise, proposed by the communists last week, did not convince the PS and the idea was abandoned over the weekend… And this is starting to annoy, eight days after the surprise first place of the left in the second round of the early legislative elections.
“I am so angry at the face we are showing,” environmentalist Sandrine Rousseau despaired on X on Monday. The strongest tensions are between the Insoumis and the Socialists, the two main groups of the NFP fighting for leadership on the left of the new hemicycle.
“If things are blocked today, it is clearly the fault of the Socialist Party,” declared LFI coordinator Manuel Bompard, denouncing on RMC and BFMTV “the systematic opposition, the blockages, the vetoes” emanating according to him from the PS “on all the candidacies.”
“We will be up to the task” and “nothing has been blocked”, responds the first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure, official candidate of the socialists for Matignon.
The left is playing for big
To get out of the rut, the Seine-et-Marne MP suggested on France 2 to “widen” the prism to “someone from outside”. “We must try to find the personality, perhaps from civil society, who will allow us to move forward together”, he explained, without however naming any names.
The Insoumis, for their part, have set another priority for the NFP: agreeing on a joint candidacy for the post of President of the Assembly, the election for which takes place on Thursday.
“It is this first part that we must win now. The more time we waste in other discussions, the more we will be weakened,” noted Manuel Bompard. “The rest will depend on this election to the National Assembly,” added on TF1 the rebellious deputy of Val-de-Marne Clémence Guetté, also cited among the candidates for the post of Prime Minister.
The left is playing big on this election to the perch: part of the Macronist camp has been trying for several days to build an alternative majority to the NFP for this key position, which Yaël Braun-Pivet intends to keep. An agreement with the right, for example, could allow the presidential bloc to overtake the left in number of votes.
Attal soon to resign
The question of the Republican front against the National Rally, which the left would like to pursue in the National Assembly by depriving the RN of any position of responsibility, is also one of the topics of the week.
But several Macronist executives, including Ms Braun-Pivet, are opposed to it.
This has led to the outgoing president being accused of colluding with the RN to keep her position, which she has denied. Such an agreement with the RN would be “unimaginable”, denounced Olivier Faure.
This issue should logically be included on the agenda of a meeting of the Renaissance group – soon to be renamed “Together for the Republic” – convened by Gabriel Attal at 10:30 a.m. by videoconference.
The new president of the group, elected on Saturday with 84 votes out of 98, will continue to hold this position alongside that of Prime Minister until Emmanuel Macron accepts his resignation.
In the midst of the political uncertainty, one thing is certain for the future government: it will recover public finances in the red. In a thick report presented on Monday morning, the Court of Auditors draws up a worrying assessment.
The need to reduce debt is an “imperative” which “must be shared” by all political forces, warned its first president Pierre Moscovici.
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