Will France soon have a government? For six weeks, the country has been in an unprecedented period of uncertainty, with President Emmanuel Macron accused of prolonging the instability as key budget deadlines approach.
Deprived of a majority in the Assembly after its failed dissolution, the head of state had to accept the resignation in mid-July of Gabriel Atal's government, limited to managing current affairs.
But he is still reluctant to appoint a prime minister from the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) coalition, which came first in legislative elections on July 7 despite falling well short of an absolute majority.
After the Olympic truce ended, Macron invited all party leaders to this Friday for a "series of talks" to try to form a government, but made no secret of his lack of enthusiasm. "We don't want life to go back to normal," he said after the Olympics.
These consultations do not pass under the best assistance. The dominant force in the New Popular Front, "Disobedient France" (LFI, radical left) is already threatening to start proceedings to release the president, in protest at his "institutional coup against democracy" and his refusal to comply with the verdict of the ballot box .
The initiative would have little chance of success and has not gained traction elsewhere on the left, but it speaks volumes for the political fragmentation of a country that almost went to the far right during the last legislative election.
Pressed from all sides, the head of state seems to be looking among the right for a rare bird that would allow him to form a coalition government and avoid a stormy coexistence with the left, which he proposes as Prime Minister Lucy Castes, a high-ranking official unknown to the general public.
"Emmanuel Macron is hoping that time will bring about alliances that do not currently seem possible," political scientist Francois Miquet-Marty analyzed for AFP. "But he is very reserved because time is not on his side."
However, the president seems to be having difficulty accepting this new configuration, where he no longer has such leeway. "Emmanuel Macron should stop playing for a while," said a recent editorial in the center-left daily Le Monde, calling on him "to show that he will listen to the voice of the French by appointing a prime minister who reflects their choice ".
According to the political scientist Anne-Charlene Bezin, the growing impatience in France is due to the fact that after the legislative elections, which did not give an absolute majority, no natural contender for the post of prime minister emerged.
The French political system "taught us more obvious changes," she told AFP.
The equation also looks complicated due to the deterioration of the country's public finances.
Worried by its mounting debt, France, like six other countries, is subject to the European Union's excessive deficit procedure and has until September 20 to present its medium-term plan in Brussels to get back on track.
At the same time, the executive branch must present its draft budget for 2025 by October 1 at the latest, which will require painful compromises.
In early March, the outgoing government set the amount of savings the state and communities would need to make next year at "€20 billion". But no one knows whether this goal will be taken up by the next government team.
Elsewhere in Europe, other countries, managed to survive long weeks without a government at the cost of occasional alliances to keep the machine running and texts accepted.
In 2010-2011, Belgium experienced 541 days without a government, a record that did not prevent it from sending troops to Libya. Rebelote in 2020: Belgians had to wait sixteen months after the legislative elections before a new ministerial team appeared.
Nothing like it in France. "We are still far from a German-type coalition model, which will require the maturation and creation of government contracts," notes Mieke-Marty. "The culture of compromise is forged when we are pressed against the wall." | AFP, BGNES
