Still no French government

After more than two weeks of infighting, France’s left-wing alliance, the New Popular Front, which won a narrow plurality in the recent legislative election, has agreed on a candidate for prime minister. Lucie Castets, aged 37, is director of finance and purchasing for the city of Paris; she is well qualified as an economist and bureaucrat, but has essentially no political profile. She had no Wikipedia page until she was nominated, and the first Guardian story about her misspelt her name in the headline.*

Her obscurity may be an advantage within the NFP, in that it prevents her from being closely identified with any one of its warring groups – and particularly the two largest, the Socialists and the far-left LFI. But on the wider stage it adds to an impression that the left is not really taking this idea seriously. At some level it knows perfectly well that it cannot govern alone, and that unless it is willing to prolong gridlock indefinitely, at some point it will have to deal with president Emmanuel Macron.

But it still seems a long way from admitting that fact. Castets promptly declared that “a coalition with the presidential camp is impossible due to our profound disagreements,” and that “this was not what the voters who put the NFP’s program of change (rupture) in the lead at the last election are expecting.” Yet somehow the fact that those voters did not amount to a majority is going to have to be faced.

The announcement was also designed to steal some thunder from Macron, who gave his first televised interview since the election shortly afterwards. In it he confirmed that he would keep the existing caretaker government in place until the Olympic games are over, since anything else would be too disruptive. As to Castets’ nomination, he remarked, correctly, that the identity of the nominee wasn’t the point – the point was “what majority can be built in the National Assembly.”

What Castets and her backers say they want is to form a government and then deal with legislation on a case by case basis, being supported by the centre on some issues and by the far right on others. But there’s no indication so far that either centre or far right would be willing to tolerate such an effort. Unless there is some prior arrangement with one of them – and the NFP can’t come to an arrangement with the far right without betraying its whole reason for existence – the other two blocs would combine at the first opportunity to pass a vote of no-confidence.

For all his vaunted arrogance, Macron is the one who is highlighting the need for compromise, of the sort that (as he points out) would in most European countries be an accepted part of how the system works. As an editorial in Le Monde, the traditional voice of France’s centre-left, forlornly puts it, “Many people find this difficult to understand.”

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* In fact, some thirty hours later the mistake is still there.