PARIS (Reuters) – La France Insoumise (LFI) reaffirmed on Monday that the New Popular Front (NFP) would file a motion of censure against any government not led by Lucie Castets, as President Emmanuel Macron continues his consultations to find a prime minister.
Emmanuel Macron will meet this Monday with former Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, as well as former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, who is presented as a possible compromise candidate.
On France 2, Mathilde Panot, leader of the La France Insoumise deputies, repeated that “the four formations of the New Popular Front are aligned to say that we would censure any government other than that of Ms Lucie Castets”.
Bernard Cazeneuve, François Hollande’s last Prime Minister, who left the PS in 2022, “belongs to the old world of Hollandism from which we want (…) to turn the page”, added Mathilde Panot.
“We are returning to the world before by consulting the former presidents of the Republic. We are even being offered Bernard Cazeneuve, I have the impression of an immense return to the past, a bit like a space-time rift”, added LFI MEP Manon Aubry on Europe 1 and CNews.
“We will censor any continuity with Macronism,” however qualified the first secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, on BFMTV-RMC.
Interviewed on TF1, National Rally (RN) MP Jean-Philippe Tanguy declared that a government led by Xavier Bertrand, another personality received this Monday at the Elysée and former minister of Nicolas Sarkozy, would “without doubt” be censored, “because what he brings is the bankruptcy of France”.
If Emmanuel Macron were to appoint a Bernard Cazeneuve government, it “depends[rait] of what he is going to propose,” said Jean-Philippe Tanguy, adding that “Mr. Cazeneuve is Mr. Macron, it’s the same.”
For her part, the leader of the RN, Marine Le Pen, called for the convening of an extraordinary session of Parliament, like the Communist Party (PC) and the PS last week, while the deputies are not due to return to the benches of the National Assembly until October 1.
In a press release on Monday, the RN is calling for “a debate on the situation of France’s public finances as well as that of social security finances” but also on “the security situation”.
In a statement published on Wednesday, the deputies of the Democratic and Republican Left (GDR) group requested that Parliament be able to “take back the reins and get to work without further delay”, in particular to “deliberate as quickly as possible on the proposed laws arising from the NFP programme”.
“It is not normal for democracy to be on holiday,” Olivier Faure summed up on BFMTV-RMC on Monday.
Having resigned since July 8, the day after the second round of legislative elections, Gabriel Attal’s government has managed day-to-day affairs throughout this summer, which has notably seen Paris host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which last until September 7.
(Written by Kate Entringer)
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