France: Failure To Agree On New PM Makes Left-Wing Coalition More Fragile

New Popular Front, the left-wing coalition that won most of the seats during the snap poll in France is facing division after the coalition’s leading party said it was suspending negotiations with the others over a failure to agree on a prime minister.

Within one week of the election victory, the already fragile unity within the coalition started to crumple when when France Unbowed (LFI) accused the Socialist party (PS) of “unacceptable methods” in vetoing suggestions over who should lead any new administration.

The rift within the group came at the beginning of a crucial week in which the government will resign and new MPs will vote on Thursday to appoint a new president of the national assembly, the equivalent of the speaker of the house.

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LFI said it would not resume talks about forming a government or agreeing a possible prime minister until after the vote for president of the lower house. The party accused the PS of playing into the hands of Macron – whose centrist alliance Ensemble pushed the far-right National Rally (RN) into third place – by putting the left-wing alliance into a “deadlock”, in an angry statement.

“Is the PS playing for time to allow the NFP to crumble and abandoning the programme on which it was elected? We will not allow this stalemate to facilitate presidential manoeuvres”, read the statement.

President Emmanuel Macron said he would not work with a government led by LFI.  Both LFI and RN have said they would launch a motion of no confidence in any government that included the other.

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LFI said PS has chosen to veto any candidacy [for prime minister] from the NFP, with the sole aim of imposing its own, arguing that it would be the only one acceptable to Macron, through which the party is making the president of the republic the decision-maker on our alliance, even though it has been formed against him and his policies.

Jean-Luc Melenchon led LFI called the methods unacceptable. In the statement, LFI demands “an immediate agreement on a single candidate from the New Popular Front for the presidency of the national assembly … until then we will not participate in any other discussion about the forming of a government”.