New Prime Minister: the appointment of a head of government is imminent and a personality is favored by the Elysée

Emmanuel Macron a dressé un portrait-robot du candidat idéal. MAXPPP – ANDRE PAIN

Le chef de l’État aurait beaucoup progressé dans ses réflexions ces derniers jours. Il a procédé par élimination excluant toute personnalité issue du RN, de LFI ou de l’ex majorité. Xavier Bertrand serait écarté.
 

It will be a “coalitation”… For a few minutes, this advisor to Emmanuel Macron has been struggling to define the era that will likely open by the end of the week, with the appointment of a new Prime Minister. “We will be in a third form of the Fifth Republic”, he summarizes.

And to list: “The President will no longer have a majority in the Assembly, but it will not be a cohabitation either because he will not have a majority against him."

So go for a "coalitation", a summary of coalition and cohabitation.

The Élysée assures that the presidential reflection is nearing its end and that it should be completed by Sunday. Emmanuel Macron is said to already have a casting in mind.

“There is a psychological aspect”

The President said it when he met with the deputies of the Liot group on Tuesday, things must now move quickly. “There is a psychological aspect, assures the Élysée. The French, who will return from vacation on September 2, must, in substance as in incarnation, note the change."

The little tune that has been rising for a few days, suggesting that the President would like to keep control regardless of the results of the last legislative elections, has not escaped the Élysée.

It is therefore urgent to respond to it before the demonstrations planned for September 7th at the call of a part of the left, “against Emmanuel Macron's coup de force”.

Above all, do not let anger accumulate. Preparing the budget also requires moving quickly. “The President is very concerned about not plunging France into a budgetary impasse”, assures his entourage.

A new Prime Minister must therefore quickly get to work. Emmanuel Macron, who has consulted extensively, both his close associates, such as his former advisor Philippe Grangeon, or Richard Ferrand, but also Nicolas Sarkozy and Jean-Pierre Raffarin, would be at the moment of “the crystallization of his choice”.

Cazeneuve in the short-list

The tenant of the Élysée Palace first defined a robot portrait of the ideal candidate. “The President wants a PM who has been his opponent to avoid debates on the theme: he wants to keep power”, the Château assures us.

It must be a man or a woman who knows Parliament and does not provoke immediate censure. “The RN said it would not censor anyone except the NFP, the LR said: “No censorship”, the central bloc is open to everything, like the Liot group”, lists an advisor to the President. It remains to convince the left.

“We need a personality that some of the deputies cannot censor because he or she would be too popular in the eyes of their activists. “We need an equation of opinion” , whispers our advisor.

A name is dropped as a hypothesis, that of the former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve. “François Hollande (*), for example, cannot censor his former PM” , smiles this close friend of Emmanuel Macron.

In addition, the man is appreciated by a part of the French for having managed the attacks of November 13. He would be the only one to return to Matignon a second time, after Jacques Chirac.

"The announcement could be made during the PS summer days. It could be interesting, because it would cause chaos", jokes the President's entourage, without confirming the identity of the lucky winner.

Exit Xavier Bertrand

The name of Xavier Bertrand, on the other hand, seems to be ruled out, too “stinging” for part of the right. The next Prime Minister will then have to form a legislative pact and then a government.

To convince themselves that the situation does not necessarily lead to an impasse, the presidential advisers have immersed themselves in two periods of history.

The very end of the 19th century first: invested in 1899, in the middle of the Dreyfus affair, Waldeck-Rousseau managed to integrate into the same government General de Galliffet, “a shooter of the Commune”, and the socialist Alexandre Millerand.

The Élysée also closely observed the functioning of the provisional government of 1944, which brought together communists, socialists, radicals, Christian democrats and the republican right and notably set up social security. But comparison…

(*)  « Censoring Lucie Castets is an institutional error by Emmanuel Macron, says François Hollande, in an interview with Le Point, Wednesday.

NFP removed from government: the French approve, but they are getting impatient

According to an Elabe-BFMTV poll published Wednesday, a majority of the French (56%) consider that the President of the Republic made the right decision in deciding to rule out the possibility of a New Popular Front (NFP) government, compared to 43% who believe that he was wrong. But the French are getting impatient and 63% consider that Emmanuel Macron and the presidential camp are primarily responsible for the current situation.

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