PARIS — France’s next prime minister should not be one of President Emmanuel Macron’s allies if the center-right Les Républicains party is to offer its crucial support, its leader Bruno Retailleau said Thursday.
Retailleau and Les Républicains have engaged in minority government coalitions with Macron-aligned centrists since last summer’s snap elections, which resulted in a hung parliament.
But he sparked an unprecedented political controversy Sunday evening by publicly criticizing then-Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s Cabinet picks — despite having been reappointed as interior minister. Lecornu resigned a several hours later.
Speaking at POLITICO’s competitiveness summit in Paris, Retailleau argued that Macron’s camp, which lost the most seats in those elections, was overrepresented in Lecornu’s government and should wield less power to reflect its electoral setback.
“In this political crisis, we must not exacerbate the democratic malaise,” the conservative leader said.
Retailleau emphasized that since last year’s snap election, each new prime minister has been even more aligned with Macron than their predecessor.
Macron’s first pick was someone from outside his partisan ranks — Michel Barnier, a member of Les Républicains — to form a minority government. Barnier fell to a vote of no confidence three months later.
The next choice, François Bayrou, one of Macron’s earliest supporters, was also ousted by parliament nine months later. Macron then appointed his protégé Lecornu, who resigned in record time.
“We need a minister of cohabitation,” Retailleau said, referring to a political arrangement in which the prime minister hails from a party opposing the president.
Retailleau’s Les Républicains also lost several seats and scored just over 8 percent of the vote in last year’s election.
Several names have been floated to become France’s next prime minister, with an announcement expected by Friday evening, according to the president’s office.
Jean-Louis Borloo, a former center-right minister, has been mentioned in Elysée circles in recent days as a possible replacement for Lecornu. He could hold discussions with the powerful left bloc in parliament and “wouldn’t be seen as so openly a Macron lieutenant,” said a parliamentary adviser from Macron’s Renaissance party, granted anonymity to discuss ongoing talks.
Retailleau said he had spoken with Borloo on Thursday morning and described the 74-year-old as “disruptive” and neither left-wing nor close to Macron — his two key criteria.
The conservative leader also voiced opposition to a so-called technical government made up of non-politicians with sectoral expertise, similar to the appointment of central banker Mario Draghi as Italy’s prime minister in 2021.
The post Next French PM shouldn’t be a Macron ally, key coalition partner says appeared first on Politico.
