White smoke, finally. Well, almost. Five days after the closing of the Olympic Games, between two commemorative ceremonies in southeastern France – in Saint-Raphaël on Thursday and in Bormes-les-Mimosas on Saturday, for the 80th anniversary of the Provence landings – President Emmanuel Macron unveiled his schedule: He will receive party and parliamentary group leaders on August 23 at the Elysée Palace, before appointing a prime minister the following week.
The Elysée explained that this date had been "agreed" with the party leaders, who it said have not all returned from vacation. Whatever the explanation, the president has clearly chosen to take his time in acknowledging the French people's vote, seven weeks after they cast their ballots on July 7. "We need to do things in the right order, and that means a time of decantation before the time of coalition," he said privately.
Following the second round of legislative elections, his silence came as a surprise, even though the threat of the far right coming to power had just been narrowly averted. After having abruptly subjected the country to a period of tension by calling for rushed, ill-prepared legislative elections that gave candidates no time to prepare, let alone debate the substance, Macron seemed to have lost interest in the verdict of the ballot box as soon as the elections were over.
It was as if he was washing his hands of it, in no hurry to accept his defeat and that of his camp (rejected twice, in the European elections and the legislative elections). This left the French, who had turned out in large numbers to vote, hungry and in a way "snubbed." Suddenly, because he had so decided, it became urgent to wait.
On July 10, with his letter to the French public, and then on July 23, on TV channel France 2, he again bought some time, declaring an "Olympic truce." This came after he called on the parties and parliamentary groups – which he asked to form a coalition, the contours of which he himself took the liberty of defining – to face up to their "responsibilities." He forgot that his own constitutional responsibilities (Article 8) require him to act on the results of the election and appoint a prime minister, even if no clear majority emerges.
A month and a half after his defeat, Macron is behaving as if he had won and that everything still depended on him, while France still has no new government. This unprecedented and troubling delay puts the country in a totally unusual situation, with ministers in charge of "day-to-day affairs" but still making crucial decisions, including preparing the next budget. They're taking part in the first votes in the Assemblée Nationale (on the distribution of posts, in July), in defiance of France's separation of powers, in which a minister cannot also be sitting in Parliament.
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