Macron Quizzes Predecessors as He Tries to Decide on New Premier
(Bloomberg) -- Emmanuel Macron met with former French presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande on Monday as he tries to decide who to name as prime minister in order to end weeks of uncertainty over the country’s next government.
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He also held talks with ex-Socialist premier Bernard Cazeneuve and will speak with conservative politician Xavier Bertrand at the Elysee Palace in Paris later in the day, according to an official. Both have at different times been considered front-runners for the post.
Macron began consulting political leaders last month in a bid to garner support for a compromise candidate for the job after snap legislative elections this summer failed to deliver any group capable of forming a majority in the National Assembly.
While the president doesn’t have a legal deadline, finding a new head of government is increasingly urgent as France needs to prepare next year’s budget, which must be presented to parliament by 0ct. 1. A caretaker administration has governed France since the election.
Investors are watching closely after dumping French assets and driving up the country’s borrowing costs on uncertainty over whether the new government can tackle large deficits.
Appointing Cazeneuve could help Macron’s strategy to divide the left and attract moderate socialists to his coalition. Picking Bertrand could help secure the support of moderate right-wing legislators.
According to Agence France-Presse, the little-known head of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) advisory body, Thierry Beaudet, has also emerged as a possible candidate.
Cazeneuve, 61, served briefly as prime minister between 2016 and 2017 in the twilight of Hollande’s presidency. Often characterized as a centrist, he left the Socialist Party two years ago to found his own movement in protest against its alliance with the far-left France Unbowed.
He was Hollande’s interior minister during the 2015 terror attacks in Paris and also his budget minister. Hollande’s term was marked by broad-based tax increases to reduce the budget deficit, followed by a partial reversal in 2014 of more pro-business measures that aimed to reduce levies companies paid on labor.
Bertrand, 59, runs the working-class, northern region of Hauts-de-France, where Marine Le Pen’s far right has made electoral gains that have helped propel her bid for the 2027 presidential election. Bertrand has positioned himself as a bastion of traditional parties, regularly clashing with Le Pen and her allies.
He served as health minister and labor minister under Sarkozy. He quit the Republicans party in 2017 but rekindled ties by running in its presidential primary in 2021.
Macron threw French politics into disarray in June by dissolving the lower house after the far-right National Rally trounced his centrist alliance in European Parliament elections.
The New Popular Front coalition, which includes the moderate Socialists, Greens, Communists and France Unbowed, claimed the right to name a premier to build a cabinet after winning the most seats. The party put forward Lucie Castets, a public servant who works at Paris’s city hall.
Macron has rejected that proposal, arguing the alliance doesn’t have enough support to survive a no-confidence vote in parliament. Its proposals for big tax and spending increases have been a sticking point in talks on forming a new government.
“We’ll vote against any government not led by Lucie Castets,” Mathilde Panot, head of France Unbowed, said on France 2 Monday, calling for protests on Saturday against Macron’s refusal to appoint her. “Cazeneuve would be someone who will continue with Macron’s policies.”
Macron has said he wants parties that represent “republican forces” to build a broad majority from the political center, which would effectively exclude France Unbowed and the far right. Presidential aides have privately suggested the new government should resemble a so-called cohabitation, in which the president and prime minister are from rival parties.
--With assistance from Ania Nussbaum, Tara Patel and William Horobin.
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