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French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday ruled out a leftwing alliance forming France’s next government, as he doubled down on his efforts to cobble together a coalition involving moderate politicians.
Macron concluded the leftist Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) — which won July’s snap parliamentary election but is far short of a majority — would immediately be opposed by “over 350 deputies” in the 577-seat National Assembly, preventing it from governing, his office said.
After two days of consultations by Macron with political leaders on the appointment of a new prime minister, the Elysée palace said the president had decided “the institutional stability of our country . . . requires us not to choose [the NFP] option”.
It added Macron would begin a new round of consultations in his quest to appoint a prime minister.
France still does not have a new government seven weeks after the July 7 election resulted in a hung parliament and cut the number of seats held by Macron’s centrist alliance.
Current prime minister Gabriel Attal and his government have remained in place in a caretaker role, but with the Paris Olympics over and a vote on France’s 2025 budget looming in October, pressure to install the next government is mounting.
Macron’s refusal to name Lucie Castets, the NFP’s candidate for prime minister, as Attal’s successor dashed the left’s ambitions to govern after a concerted and at times aggressive campaign.
The alliance spans the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) to more moderate parties, including the Communists and Socialists. Earlier this month LFI members had called for the removal of the president by parliament if Macron did not name Castets.
In France’s political system, Macron, whose term runs until 2027, retains the power to appoint the prime minister.
Macron has said he wants to form a coalition of moderate “republican forces” ranging from the centre-left to the right.
He excludes the LFI as well as the far-right Rassemblement National, which had hoped to win the parliamentary election and is now the second biggest group in the National Assembly.
The Elysée said Macron encouraged the Socialists, Greens and Communists to “propose ways to co-operate with other political forces. It is now up to them to do so.”
However, Communist party leader Fabien Roussel said on Monday night that he would not attend meetings at the Elysée scheduled for Tuesday and called for popular protests.
The president and his allies were “opening a serious crisis in our country” by refusing to name an NFP government and would have to “accept the consequences”, Roussel told broadcaster BFMTV.
LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said Macron had created “an exceptionally grave situation” as leaders from his party repeated their intention to try to remove the president — a threat that has little chance of becoming a reality.
“The popular and political response must be swift and firm,” Mélenchon wrote on X.
The conservative Les Republicains have said for weeks they will not join a coalition, which further reduces the pool of MPs that Macron can call on to form a government.
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