Seven weeks after calling snap elections that were intended to "clarify" the political situation, is Emmanuel Macron finally ready to appoint a prime minister, as he is required to do by the Constitution? Have the "Olympic truce" and vacations by the sea – the president returned to Paris on the evening of Thursday, August 22 – brought back the "concord" and "appeasement" among political leaders that he called for a month after deciding to dissolve the Assemblée Nationale? The next few days should at least allow us to answer these two questions.
Macron is meeting with leaders of all the political parties represented in Parliament on Friday, August 23, and the following Monday, "with a view to appointing a prime minister," said a member of his entourage. The appointment should take place "fairly quickly after these meetings," according to sources at the presidency, without giving any further details. Parties have been invited to the Elysée by order of the number of seats held by each bloc in the Assemblée, explained an adviser. Therefore, the parties of the left (La France Insoumise [LFI], the Socialists, the Greens and the Communists), were scheduled to appear first, at 10:30 am on Friday, led by Lucie Castets, their designated candidate for prime minister. The president is acknowledging that the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire coalition is the leading political bloc in the Assemblée, while some of his followers have insisted that there were "no winners or losers" in the legislative elections.
The leaders of Macron's coalition – outgoing Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, and heads of allied parties, François Bayrou (MoDem) and Edouard Philippe (Horizons) – will then have lunch at the president's table. "It's like Club Med, we get the all-inclusive package," said one of the privileged guests.
The conservative Les Républicains (LR) will see Macron in the early afternoon, followed by the miscellaneous independents from the LIOT group, and finally the small center-left Parti Radical de Gauche. The leaders of the far-right Rassemblement National, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, gave warning that they would not be back in Paris before the end of the week. They will therefore head to the Elysée on Monday, as will their ally Eric Ciotti, the ousted head of LR. Macron, who had omitted to consult the presidents of the chambers of Parliament before dissolving the Assemblée, will also meet Assemblée President Yaël Braun-Pivet and Sénat President Gérard Larcher on Monday.
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