Macron To Meet Party Leaders 23 Aug-AFP

AFP reporting that according to the Elysee Palace, President Emmaneul Macron will meet with party heads on Friday 23 August. The meetings come amid renewed disagreement between the president and the centrist Ensemble bloc in the National Assembly aligned with Macron, and the leftist New Popular Front (NFP) over who should lead the next gov't.

• The NFP argues that as the largest bloc in the National Assembly its preferred candidate, Paris civil servant Lucie Castets, should be nominated by Macron as PM under the constitution.
• However, Macron has already rejected her candidacy claiming that she would not be able to command a stable majority in the National Assembly.
• The two most likely scenarios at present appear to be either an NFP minority gov't (that would be immediately vulnerable to a no-confidence vote) or a broad centre-left, centrist, centre-right coalition that would face difficulty in passing legislation given the major political differences evident.
• Some pundits, even those not aligned with Macron, have argued that it is not the president's place under Article 8 of the constitution to decide whether the gov't they are appointing can command a majority, but only to appoint an individual from the largest party or bloc in parliament.
• Cohabitation (president from one party, PM from another) is rare but not unheard of, with Presidents Francois Mitterand and Jacques Chirac both having periods of their presidency under the system.