France’s Macron to Meet Ex-Socialist Cazeneuve Before Naming New Premier
(Bloomberg) -- President Emmanuel Macron will meet with Bernard Cazeneuve, a former Socialist Party official and ex-premier, on Monday as he heads toward naming France’s next prime minister.
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He also plans to meet well-known conservative politician Xavier Bertrand, according to an official at the president’s Elysee Palace. Cazeneuve and Bertrand have at different times been considered front-runners for the post, which has been up for grabs since July when an early legislative election called by Macron shook up French politics.
Macron may announce a decision in the next few days. He also plans to confer on Monday with former presidents Francois Hollande, a Socialist, and Nicolas Sarkozy of the center-right, according to the Elysee official.
Consultations on a prime minister began last month in a bid to line up French political leaders behind a compromise to end weeks of uncertainty after no group won a majority in the National Assembly in Paris.
While Macron doesn’t have a legal deadline, finding a new head of government is increasingly urgent as France needs to prepare next year’s budget. A caretaker administration has governed France since the election.
Investors are watching closely after dumping French assets and driving up the country’s borrowing costs on uncertainty over whether the new government can tackle large deficits.
Cazeneuve, 61, served briefly as prime minister between 2016 and 2017 in the twilight of Hollande’s presidency. Often characterized as a centrist, he left the Socialist Party two years ago to found his own movement in protest against its alliance with the far-left France Unbowed.
He was Hollande’s interior minister during the 2015 terror attacks in Paris and also his budget minister. Hollande’s term was marked by broad-based tax increases to reduce the budget deficit, followed by a partial reversal in 2014 of more pro-business measures that aimed to reduce levies companies paid on labor.
Bertrand, 59, runs the working-class, northern region of Hauts-de-France, where Marine Le Pen’s far right has made electoral gains that have helped propel her movement’s bid in the 2027 presidential election. Bertrand has positioned himself as a bastion of traditional parties, regularly clashing with Le Pen and her allies.
Bertrand served as health minister and labor minister under Sarkozy. He quit the Republicans party in 2017, but rekindled ties by running in its presidential primary in 2021.
Macron threw French politics into disarray in June by dissolving the National Assembly, France’s top legislative body, after the far-right National Rally trounced his centrist alliance in nationwide elections to the European Parliament.
The New Popular Front coalition, which includes the moderate Socialists and France Unbowed, claimed the right to name a premier to build a cabinet after winning the most seats. The party proposed Lucie Castets, a public servant who works at Paris’s city hall.
Macron dismissed the proposal, arguing the NPF didn’t have enough support to survive a confidence vote, and NPF proposals for big tax and spending increases have been a sticking point in talks on forming a new government.
“We’ll vote against any government not led by Lucie Castets,” Mathilde Panot, head of France Unbowed, said on France 2 Monday, calling for protests on Saturday against Macron’s refusal to name the NPF candidate. “Cazeneuve would be someone who will continue with Macron’s policies.”
Macron has said he wants parties that represent “republican forces” to build a broad majority from the political center, which would effectively exclude France Unbowed and the far right. Presidential aides have privately suggested the new government should resemble a so-called cohabitation, in which the president and prime minister are from rival parties.
Appointing Cazeneuve could help Macron’s strategy to divide the left and attract moderate socialists to his coalition. Picking Bertrand could help secure the support of moderate right-wing legislators.
--With assistance from William Horobin, Ania Nussbaum and Tara Patel.
(Updates with France Unbowed comment in the 14th paragraph.)
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