BREAK WITH LEFT UNITED FRONT
By Théo Bourgery-Gonse | Euractiv
Sep 1, 2024
First Secretary of the Socialist Party Olivier Faure (front) speaks during a press conference, 14 June 2024. [Mohammed Badra/EPA-EFE]
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French President Emmanuel Macron will meet former Socialist behemoth Bernard Cazeneuve amid ongoing prime minister appointment talks on Monday (2 September), according to confirmation obtained by Euractiv.
Over the weekend, persistent rumours circulated that Cazeneuve could be Macron’s choice to take on the prime minister’s role, some 50 days into a deep political impasse that has left France without a coalition government.
It even shattered the Socialist Party’s united front at its ‘summer university’ – an annual gathering in rural Blois that marks the party’s political rentrée and which Euractiv attended – and revealed serious internal divisions on how to deal with the possibility that one of their own, despite having renounced his party membership in 2022, could get the top job.
Nemesis Cazeneuve
The nomination would officially end the slim possibility of nominating the little-known Lucie Castets, who has been the joint candidate of the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) since July. Earlier this week, Macron ruled out a coalition government with Castets, citing the risk that it would never survive a no-confidence vote.
Cazeneuve, for his part, has become a nemesis to a large swath of the party’s top leadership.
A former prime minister at the twilight of Hollande’s time in office, Cazeneuve held a series of ministerial posts under the Socialist administration (2012-2017), including for home affairs, budget and EU affairs.
Most importantly, he was a vocal critic of the 2022 left-wing NUPES alliance and its 2024 NFP spinoff – which, as an alliance between the Socialist Party, the Communists, the Greens and Jean-Luc-Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (LFI), came out on top in July’s legislative elections, despite being 100 seats short of an absolute majority – blaming the socialists for giving in to LFI, deemed too radical.
In other words, Cazeneuve has become persona non grata for many leaders of the Socialist Party, who created and engineered the NFP, and for large sections of their electorate, who are ready to unite forces.
They see him as the man behind a right-wing shift in the Socialist Party’s doctrine under Hollande, which ultimately led to its defeat in the 2017 legislative elections.
A source briefed on the matter told Euractiv that Cazeneuve will be meeting with Macron on Monday, confirming media reports.
This means the socialists must decide between supporting a Cazeneuve government, hoping to influence policy priorities, breaking ties with the NFP, or remaining in opposition, even at the risk of appearing irresponsible.
French Socialists between a rock and a hard place amid country's ongoing political crisis
Divisions and frustrations are growing within France’s Socialist Party as it struggles to agree on whether to take part in future coalition talks in the hope of entering government, an approach that risks bringing down the left-wing union that got them elected.
It’s not who, it’s what
The official party line has always been to protect the left-wing alliance, but this is being challenged more than ever.
Party leaders say they are willing to give Cazeneuve a chance as long as key demands—the withdrawal of the now infamous 2023 pension law and an increase in the minimum wage—are considered.
“It’s not about who becomes prime minister, but instead what their priorities are,” MEP Aurore Lalucq, who is not a member of the socialist party but belongs to the same European S&D family, told Euractiv earlier this week.
Lalucq says she is open to talks with other parties, apart from the far right: “We can start negotiations, even if they don’t end”.
For S&D MEP François Kalfon, picking Cazeneuve is good news, making him one of several dozen senior party leaders to have come out in favour of joining future coalition talks.
“He may not implement 100% of the NFP programme [as part of a coalition government], but we can agree on key components,” he said, adding that “any compromise amounts to a trade-off.”
“It will be a genuine cohabitation government and a left-wing government,” Cazeneuve is quoted in Le Monde as saying about the prospect of getting the top job.
The source Euractiv spoke to confirmed that his appointment was on the cards: “Some MPs from the socialist party and the [centre-right] support him. But it’s far from a done deal yet,” the source said.
Kalfon calls on his political family to look at what happens in the European Parliament, where consensus-building is the norm, and adapt their thinking at the national level.
“A parallel can be drawn between the functioning of the Parliament vis-à-vis the European Commission and the political situation in France after the snap legislative elections,” Kalfon added.
While the absence of any viable coalition government in France, a situation lasting 50 days and counting, may be new for the French, it is not unusual in other EU countries. That said, the longer this continues, the more it stains Emmanuel Macron’s reputation on the EU stage.
Macron aims to “make political parties implode.”
Other party leaders warn that throwing its weight behind Cazeneuve would implode the NFP, frustrate the Socialists’ electoral base, and risk being associated with Macron and the right.
“If you want to govern without the NFP and with the right, you will become the right,” said the party’s top man Olivier Faure in Blois, denying any real internal “divisions”.
Current parliamentary arithmetic suggests that any coalition government would only remain in office if the far right abstained in a no-confidence vote unless the left lent its support: “We don’t want to govern with the benevolence of the far right, nor be Macron’s hostages,” Faure explained.
“Macron’s only aim is to make political parties implode,” a source close to Faure, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, told Euractiv.
“He did it with the right. He wants to do it with the left – that’s the whole logic behind the Cazeneuve rumours,” the source added.
More will be known after Macron and Cazeneuve meet on Monday.
Théo Bourgery Gonse reported from Blois. Laurent Geslin contributed to reporting.
[Edited by Daniel Eck]
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