For left-wing voters, the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) alliance is easy to like, but hard to understand. There is a risk that, by watching its inability to agree on a united candidacy for the position of prime minister, voters may end up hating it. On the morning of Friday, July 19, just a few hours after Macron-aligned MP Yaël Braun-Pivet was re-elected as the president of the Assemblée Nationale, beating Parti Communiste (PCF, left) MP André Chassaigne, one of the negotiators of the left-wing alliance David Cormand spoke to Le Monde, near the famous hill in Montmartre in Paris, in a calm that contrasted with the excitement of the previous day, so that he could explain everything and in the right order.

Cormand, the former head of the Greens party and now an MEP, has been involved in these negotiations, which have so far been both secret and fruitless, as the NFP has been unable to agree on a candidate for the position of prime minister. He explained to us that he still considers it possible that the left could come to power: "We're not out of the game, thanks to the confirmation, during the votes in the Assemblée, that the Macronist-right alliance is fragile," he said. In his opinion, there was not much more time to lose. "The more time passes, the more weary the people who voted for the NFP become, and the more creative Emmanuel Macron can be. So I'm in favor of not letting him think it over too much."

Except that, on Friday morning, while resolutely delivering this message, Cormand was preparing to go on vacation. Would the resumption of negotiations be postponed until the end of the summer? The Green politician, like the other negotiators and all observers, seemed a little lost. Many at the NFP have been going round in circles, often aimlessly. Since the La France Insoumise (LFI, radical left) party unilaterally decided to suspend negotiations over the candidate for prime minister on July 15, in order to focus on finding a common candidate for the presidency of the Assemblée, no further collective negotiations had been conducted in a formal capacity.

Although the Parti Socialiste (PS, left) issued a press release on Friday calling for "a solemn vote by the MPs of the four NFP groups by July 23" – following a request from the Communists to the same effect – many LFI members were opposed to both the timeframe and the method of candidate nomination. LFI founder Jean-Luc Mélenchon has clearly indicated that he was in no hurry to reach an agreement. As for voting, it's a method that doesn't suit LFI, who are still striving for consensus. The Greens, meanwhile, have been slow to come to a decision on the issue.

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