News - Macron starts talks with France political parties to appoint new PM

French President Emmanuel Macron launches negotiations with different party leaders this Friday in a latest effort to bring an end to six weeks of political deadlock following snap legislative elections, France 24 reports. Macron seems set on forging a broad coalition that would likely include his own defeated centre-right bloc. The discussions begin this Friday with the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) alliance, which won the largest number of seats while still falling far short of an absolute majority. The party leaders will bring with them their prime ministerial candidate Lucie Castets, an economist and civil servant with a record of fighting financial crime. The leftist coalition has called on Macron to name Castets prime minister, noting that France’s premier traditionally hails from the political group with the most seats in parliament. Although the president’s choice of prime minister doesn’t require formal approval from the National Assembly, MPs can launch a vote of no-confidence to immediately overturn a government. With the National Assembly now divided into three political blocs with three radically different political programs, this looks like a very real possibility. Macron has declined to appoint Castets, insisting that the parties instead work together to forge a broader coalition that could withstand any such no-confidence vote in the National Assembly. The president has made it clear that his preference would be for a coalition stretching from the centre-left Socialists, currently one of the two major parties in the NFP, to the traditional conservative Les Republicains—and including, naturally, his own centre-right bloc as well. It’s been six weeks since French voters turned out in force to vote in the snap legislative elections called by President Emmanuel Macron and France still doesn’t have a government. As the world’s eyes turned to Paris for the 2024 Summer Games, the president unilaterally declared an “Olympic truce,” saying he would make no decision on a new head of government until the Olympics were over.