Macron meets Le Pen under pressure to name new prime minister

PARIS (AFP) — French President Emmanuel Macron hosted far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen for rare talks Monday, as pressure mounts for him to finally name a prime minister after July's inconclusive parliamentary poll.

The three-time National Rally, or RN, presidential candidate called after the meeting for an extraordinary session of parliament so lawmakers would be able to immediately depose any new government in a confidence vote.

"I don't want a prime minister to have a month to implement by decree a toxic policy that would be dangerous for the French people," Le Pen said.

Snap elections called by centrist Macron failed last month to extricate France from the hung-parliament deadlock that had seen his camp run a minority government since 2022.

Instead, the National Assembly (lower house) is largely divided among three blocs: the New Popular Front, or NFP, alliance of left-wing parties with over 190 seats, followed by the president's supporters at around 160 and the far-right National Rally with 140.

None is close to a majority of 289 in the 577-seat chamber.

Since the second-round polls closed on July 7, the left has pushed for Macron to name one of their own as prime minister, saying the position falls to them as the largest power.

They have named largely unknown 37-year-old economist and civil servant Lucie Castets as their prospective candidate for head of government.

Macron has for his part delayed installing a new prime minister, leaving a caretaker government in place for an unprecedented period as he seeks a figure with broad support who would not immediately be toppled in a confidence vote.

"The president's weakness is that since the night of the second round, he hasn't been able to change the game or get anything moving ... . He is dependent on others' goodwill to fix his own mistakes," wrote commentator Guillaume Tabard in conservative daily Le Figaro.

‘Loaded dice’

The pressure is now on, with the deadline to present a draft 2025 budget for the heavily-indebted government looming just over a month away.

Since Friday, Macron has invited party leaders for talks at the Elysee in hopes of finding the elusive consensus candidate.

All have stuck to their guns, with the NFP alliance of Socialists, Communists, Greens and hard-left France Unbowed, the LFI, insisting they have won the right to implement their big-spending program.

"I don't want to participate in a show where the dice are loaded" against the left, Socialist party chief Olivier Faure said of the talks with Macron.

One big step came from LFI figurehead Jean-Luc Melenchon saying Friday that his followers need not be ministers in any government, a key objection of Macron and other political players.

The president has repeatedly called LFI an "extreme" movement, attempting to brand the party as equally beyond the pale as the far right.

Before, Macron "thought he could eliminate a Castets government as an option in two days of talks," center-left daily Le Monde wrote.

After Melenchon's offer, "he will have to justify more seriously than he planned to the French public why he's ruling out the NFP," the paper added.

Top Macron allies, conservatives and the RN still vow to vote no confidence in any left-wing government, shifting their fire since Melenchon's offer to the NFP's big-spending manifesto rather than its personnel.

France's 2027 presidential election, in which Macron cannot stand again after serving two terms, further stacks political incentives against compromise.

Many leaders instead appear set on demonstrating their ideological purity to voters in the long race for the country's top job.

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By Agence France-Presse