Macron rejects leftist proposal to appoint French prime minister

Reuters, AP, AFP and Europa Press

The newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, July 24, 2024, p. 27

Paris. The French left-wing alliance, New Popular Front (NFP), yesterday proposed Lucie Castets as prime minister, a civil servant committed to defending public policies.

Centre-right President Emmanuel Macron rejected the motion, saying the progressive bloc did not have a majority.

Castets, 37, finance director for the city of Paris, is in favour of repealing the pension reform approved by Macron’s government, which raised the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 and generated great opposition, the newspaper reported. The Figaro.

Castets was nominated after 16 days of negotiations and after failing to reach a consensus on two names: the president of the Réunion region, Huguette Bello, and the expert in climate diplomacy Laurence Tubiana, the latter considered close to the ideas of the president, who in the past offered her to lead a ministry.

Macron assured, in statements to France 2, that the NFP has no majority of any kind and refuses any change of government until after the Olympic Games.

The NFP, made up of the left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI), socialists, environmentalists, communists and other formations, won 193 of the 577 seats in the legislative elections.

In second place came Macron’s centre-right alliance with 160 MPs, followed by the bloc formed by the far-right National Rally (RN) party and its allies, with 143 MPs.

Macron called on the parties of the republican frontwhich excludes the extreme right RN, to be on the side height and reach compromises.

His words caused outrage on the left. By refusing to call on the NFP to form a government, Macron is erasing the results of the legislative elections. This is an intolerable denial of democracy.accused LFI leader Manuel Bompar.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, founder of LFI, said that the president rejects the election results and wants to impose on us his new Republican Front.