FRANCE
President Emmanuel Macron is set to resume talks today (27 Aug) with political leaders as he seeks to find a way through an extremely difficult political situation. In recent days, Macron has held talks with political leaders from various political camps in an effort to find a new PM nearly two months after the second round of legislative elections took place on 7 July. The deeply divided National Assembly delivered by those elections, combined with a lack of experience in coalition building within the French political system, has made reaching an agreement on a new PM and gov't impossible to date.
- Macron said in a 26 Aug statement that "...a government based solely on the platform and parties put forward by the alliance with the most lawmakers, the New Popular Front, would immediately be toppled with a vote of no confidence by all the other groups represented in the National Assembly,” The NFP argues that it has the right to install its candidate, as it is the largest group in the National Assembly.
- One of the few feasible paths to a majority coalition is if the centre-left Socialist Party (PS) breaks with its NFP allies and joins the centrist pro-Macron Ensemble bloc (see chart below). It would also require the conservative Republican Right and catch-all LIOT groups, creating a broad and unwieldy gov't that would be at risk of frequent disagreement on policy.
Chart 1. French National Assembly, Seats (Potential Coalition Formation)
Source: Le Monde, MNI
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