By Elizabeth Pineau
PARIS (Reuters) – Leaders from France’s far-right National Rally said on Monday their party will block any prime ministerial candidate from the leftist New Popular Front, narrowing President Emmanuel Macron’s options to resolve the country’s political crisis.
Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, the political tag team that runs the National Rally, met with Macron on Monday as he seeks to unlock the political deadlock caused by July’s inconclusive snap legislative election which he called.
After their one-hour meeting, Bardella said the New Popular Front – a broad alliance of parties ranging from the moderate Socialists to Jean-Luc Melenchon’s far-left France Unbowed – was a “danger” for the country.
Bardella said his camp would immediately call a no-confidence vote against any leftist premier.
“The New Popular Front in its programme, in its movements, as well as the personalities who embody it represents a danger to public order, civil peace and obviously for the economic life of the country,” Bardella told reporters. “We intend to protect the country from a government that would fracture French society.”
A Macron aide said the president could name a prime minister by the end of this week, but it remains to be seen if the person he picks – someone with the broadest possible appeal – will win approval by lawmakers. If not, Macron will have to go back to the drawing board, deepening the political crisis.
No grouping emerged from the snap election with a majority, with the vote evenly split between the New Popular Front, Macron’s centrist bloc and the National Rally.
The New Popular Front won more votes than any other party, and has argued that its candidate, a little known civil servant called Lucie Castets, should be named prime minister.
Castets told Macron on Friday that the left has the right to form the next government.
Macron has ignored the New Popular Front’s nomination, and a source close to him said he believed the balance of power lies more with the centre or centre-right.
Some possible candidates that Macron is mulling include a conservative regional president, Xavier Bertrand, and former Socialist Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, sources have said. French media recently mentioned Karim Bouamrane, the Socialist mayor of an impoverished Paris suburb, as another possible name.
Le Pen suggested Macron could call a referendum to chart a path out of the chaos, and said she was opposed to a so-called “technical” government of apolitical technocrats, saying “there are only political governments hiding behind technical names.”
