Suspense mounts as Macron expected to name prime minister

French President Emmanuel Macron was expected Thursday to name a new prime minister a week after MPs toppled the government, shortening a visit to Poland amid a torrent of criticism over the prolonged political crisis.

Macron had promised to name a replacement government chief within 48 hours after meeting party leaders at his Elysée Palace office Tuesday, participants said. Hope for movement increased when Macron’s office said he would “shorten” a trip to Poland trip and return to Paris “in the early evening.”

But the president has in the past often taken longer than expected with such decisions. He remains confronted with the complex political equation that emerged from July’s snap parliamentary poll: how to secure a government against no-confidence votes in a lower house split three ways between a leftist alliance, centrists and conservatives, and the far-right Rassemblement National (RN).

Greens leader Marine Tondelier urged Macron on Thursday to “get out of his comfort zone” as he casts around for a name. “The French public want a bit of enthusiasm, momentum, fresh wind, something new,” she told France 2 television.

Former prime minister Michel Barnier, whose government had support only from Macron’s centrist camp and his own conservative political family, was felled last week in a confidence vote over his cost-cutting budget. His caretaker administration on Wednesday reviewed a bill designed to keep the lights of government on without a formal financial plan for 2025, allowing tax collection and borrowing to continue. Lawmakers are expected to widely support the draft law when it comes before parliament on Monday.

‘Look to the future’

At issue in the search for a new prime minister are both policies and personalities.

Mainstream parties invited by Macron on Tuesday, ranging from the conservative Republicans to Socialists, Greens and Communists on the left, disagree deeply. One key issue is whether to maintain Macron’s widely loathed 2023 pension reform that increased the official retirement age to 64, seen by centrists and the right as necessary to balance the budget but blasted by the left as unjust.

On the personality front, Macron’s rumored top pick for a new PM, veteran centrist François Bayrou, raises hackles on both left and right. For the left he would embody a simple “continuation” of the president’s policies to date, Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure has said. Meanwhile Bayrou is personally disliked by former president Nicolas Sarkozy, still influential on the right and reported to have Macron’s ear.

Other contenders include former Socialist interior minister and prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve, serving Defence Minister and Macron loyalist Sebastien Lecornu, or former foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. But a name could still emerge from outside the pack, as happened with Barnier in September. Those in circulation “are names that have been around for years and haven’t seduced the French. It’s the past. I want us to look to the future,” Greens boss Tondelier said.

Far right ‘not unhappy’

While the suspense over Macron’s choice endures, there has been infighting on the left over whether to play along in the search for stability or stick to maximalist demands. Once a PM is named, “we will then have to have a discussion with whoever is named,” Socialist chief Faure said, saying the left must “be able to grab some victories for the French public.”

The Socialists’ openness to cooperation has been denounced by their nominal ally Jean-Luc Mélenchon, figurehead of the hard-left La France Insoumise (LFI). “No coalition deals! No deal not to vote no confidence! Return to reason and come home!” he urged on Tuesday.

RN leader Marine Le Pen has said she is “not unhappy” her far-right party has been left out of the horse-trading around government formation, appearing for now to benefit from the chaos rather than suffer blame for bringing last week’s no-confidence vote over the line.