PARIS — The alliance of leftist parties that scored a shock victory in France’s snap legislative elections earlier this month has agreed to nominate little-known Lucie Castets as its candidate to be the country’s next prime minister.
Castets, the director of financing and purchasing for the city of Paris, was put forward by the pan-left New Popular Front (NFP) coalition on Tuesday following weeks of infighting over who should lead France’s next government.
The NFP spent weeks haggling over candidates, with previously suggested names like far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon and compromise picks like Huguette Bello all being discarded.
Castets is a graduate of the same prestigious university — the Paris-based École national d’administration —as President Emmanuel Macron, but the similarities end there. The possible next PM is an activist who has spent much of her life working to defend French public services from being defunded.
Castets’ nomination comes after the NFP suffered a humiliating political setback last week when its candidate to lead the National Assembly — the fourth-highest ranking post in the French government — was beaten thanks to a surprise alliance between Macron’s party and right-wing lawmakers.
The loss showed that in a fractured parliament with no party close to a parliamentary majority, the left could face challenges in forming a government as it doesn’t have a majority.
The NFP has previously claimed that its win in June 30 and July 7 parliamentary elections gave it the right to name a prime minister and a cabinet.
The ball is now in Macron’s court.
The president had previously stated he would only appoint a prime minister backed by a “solid, necessarily plural” coalition, implicitly ruling out the prospect of the New Popular Front governing alone.
The timing of the NFP announcement puts Macron on the spot, as he is being interviewed Tuesday night on French television for the first time since the elections.
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