PARIS (Reuters) – France will have a hung parliament after Sunday’s parliamentary election, making it necessary for political leaders to figure out a path forward and potentially form a governing coalition, something seen as uncharted territory in French politics.
The left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) will have the biggest group of lawmakers, ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrists and the far-right National Rally (RN).
Here is what political leaders said on Monday morning:
MARINE TONDELIER, GREENS’ GENERAL SECRETARY
“According to institutional logic, Emmanuel Macron should today officially call on the Nouveau Front Populaire to give him the name of a prime minister. Will he do so? Or will he not? As this president is always full of surprises, we shall see.”
MANUEL BOMPARD, HARDLEFT FRANCE UNBOWED LEADER
“It is the leading political grouping in the National Assembly that is to govern, so the President of the Republic has a duty to summon a prime minister from the new Popular Front to the Matignon (the prime minister’s residence).”
OLIVIER FAURE, SOCIALIST PARTY LEADER
“We need to be in a position to present a candidacy within the week.”
Asked if the left’s candidate for the prime minister role could come from the far-left France Unbowed party, Faure said: “On principle, I don’t want to exclude anyone, though I think we need a profile that will enable us to talk to the outside world and bring civil society together.”
YAEL BRAUN-PIVET, SENIOR CENTRIST LAWMAKER, MACRON ALLY
“What I am seeing is that the coalition that I have been calling for for months and which was impossible to achieve in the Assembly as it was then constituted, well now for me it has become compulsory because the will for it comes from the French people and that changes everything.”
FRANCOIS BAYROU, CENTRIST MODEM PARTY LEADER
“The path, I believe, can be found. I don’t say it is certain to be found. I think it’s extremely difficult. But I know with certainty that these obstacles will have to be removed because there is a constitutional rule that the National Assembly cannot be dissolved before 8 July 2025. This means that either we are irresponsible, at which point everyone says ‘it’s my programme that will prevail, we’re the ones who won with battles over numbers’, or we say ‘we’re going to have to think things through and take steps towards each other’.
(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel; Editing by Keith Weir)
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