Macron kicks off tense talks on new French government

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron began a round of thorny consultations with political leaders on Friday, hoping to cobble together a viable ruling coalition after last month´s inconclusive election.

A full six weeks after a snap election in which Macron lost his relative parliamentary majority, he has still not named a new prime minister, whose first major task will be to submit next year´s budget plan to the National Assembly.

The left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) -- which emerged as the largest bloc post-election -- has said it wants the 37-year-old economist Lucie Castets to be the new premier.

But Macron´s forces have shown little interest in the idea, preferring a potential alliance with the traditional right.

“We have come here to remind the president how important it is to respect the election result and to pull the country out of paralysis,” Castets said as she arrived at the Elysee palace on Friday, accompanied by other NFP representatives.

She and her allies were willing to find a “compromise, given that nobody has the absolute majority” and would work towards “stability”, Castets said.

Also ahead of the meeting with Macron, Manuel Bompard, coordinator of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, had warned: “We´re not going to negotiate with him”.

Instead, he announced, “we´ll tell him that there is no alternative to Lucie Castets´s appointment.”

Allies of Macron -- who said after the election that “nobody won” -- have argued that the leftist bloc is too weak to claim the prime minister´s post, and are hoping instead to form a majority around a centrist figure.

As she left the Elysee, Castets told reporters that while Macron was “lucid” about voters´ “wish to change political direction” she had nevertheless detected “a temptation for the president to build his own government”.

Macron told members of his own camp at a later lunch that voters had sent a “message of change” but not a “complete disavowal” of his leadership, according to people in the room. He added that he was looking for an “institutionally stable” government able to survive a no-confidence vote in parliament, the people added.

Castets had earlier said she was “ready to build coalitions, starting today”, and to talk with the other political groups.