PARIS: France's President Emmanuel Macron was on Tuesday considering a former right-wing minister to lead a new government after almost two months of deadlock, sources with knowledge of the discussions said. The search has been on for a new premier after the left in early July became the largest bloc in a hung parliament after snap polls, followed by Macron's centrists and the far right.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has resigned but stayed on as a caretaker during the Paris Olympics and Paralympics. But the pressure is mounting to name a new premier by October 1, when a fresh government must file a draft budget law for 2025, a task that Attal's cabinet cannot accomplish.
The president on Monday met ex-minister Xavier Bertrand, from the right, as well as former premier Bernard Cazeneuve, from the centre left, as two potential candidates.
Leaders of the right-wing Republicans (LR) party in a meeting with Macron on Tuesday morning said they supported a nomination of Bertrand as long as he had sufficient backing from lawmakers, LR sources said. But in a blow to his chances, the far-right National Rally (RN), the largest single faction in the new National Assembly with 126 seats, said it would back a no-confidence motion against Bertrand if he was appointed.
The RN would only support a "technocratic" government which would implement a system of proportional representation for the next legislative elections rather than the current first-past-the-post set-up, said an RN official, asking not to be named.
Bertrand, 59, is the right-wing head of the northern Hauts-de-France region and previously served as labour and health minister between 2005 and 2012 under presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.
He would be a more palatable choice for the right than Cazeneuve, 61, who was interior minister during the 2015 Paris attacks and briefly led government for several months from late 2016.
French media on Monday reported 62-year-old Thierry Beaudet, the relatively unknown head of an advisory body called the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE), was also in the race.
The left-wing alliance that won the July 7 vote this summer suggested from its ranks economist Lucie Castets, 37, but Macron has quashed the idea, arguing she would not survive a confidence vote in the hung parliament. — AFP
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