PARIS, Aug 27, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - President Emmanuel Macron faced an uphill
battle Tuesday to launch fresh talks over a new government in France, with
the political left refusing to take part after he rejected their candidate
for prime minister.
 
More than seven weeks after an inconclusive parliamentary election which cost
his allies their relative majority, Macron has still not named a new prime
minister to take over from the current caretaker administration.
 
A left-wing coalition called New Popular Front (NFP) -- which emerged as the
largest bloc in the vote -- has demanded that the president pick their
candidate Lucie Castets, a 37-year-old economist who belongs to the hard-left
France Unbowed (LFI) party.
 
But late Monday, Macron ruled out naming a left-wing government, saying it
would be a "threat to institutional stability".

Instead, he called on "all political leaders to rise to the occasion by
demonstrating a spirit of responsibility".

Macron's office said that it would be pointless to name a NFP government as
it would immediately be rejected by a no-confidence vote in parliament.
 
The president called on the socialists, ecologists and communists in the
leftist alliance to "cooperate with other political forces", in an apparent
attempt to split the more moderate members of the coalition away from LFI.

But on Tuesday, Socialist party boss Oliver Faure refused Macron's invitation
to new talks, saying he would "not be an accomplice to a parody of
democracy".
 
Socialist deputies would back a no-confidence motion against any government
that was not put forward by the NFP, he said, accusing the president of
seeking to "prolong Macronism" despite losing the National Assembly election.

"French people will start to get annoyed, to say the least," Faure warned,
saying he would take part in street protests, after Communist party leader
Fabien Roussel -- who also rejected new talks with Macron -- called for a
"grand popular mobilisation".
 
"The left is being robbed of this election," said Green Party chief Marine
Tondelier.

"We won't be part of this mess anymore," she said.
 
Castets accused Macron of seeking to be "president, prime minister and party
leader all at the same time", but she said this was "not respectful of French
voters or of democracy".

The far-right National Rally (RN) has not been invited to Tuesday's talks.