Why Emmanuel Macron doesn’t want Lucie Castets as France’s prime minister

Good morning. Almost two months after a parliamentary election that left no one bloc with a majority, France is still without a prime minister. Yesterday, Emmanuel Macron, the president, started a new round of consultations on who he will appoint – after rejecting the left’s candidate Lucie Castets, whose politics are significantly out of line with the more centrist-leaning coalition that he would like to see take charge.

But the leftwing parties that form the largest bloc, the New Popular Front (NFP), are refusing to participate. The Greens’ leader, Marine Tondelier, said yesterday that the NFP would reject any government that is not on the left. “How is it possible that we have reached such denial of democracy?” she asked. “We are in the process of having this election stolen from us.”

France is not used to such political paralysis – and it is far from clear what the way out will be. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Kim Willsher, who reports for the Guardian from Paris, about a chaotic situation entirely of Macron’s own making – and what it would take to break the impasse. Here are the headlines.

Five big stories

In depth: ‘It’s pretty hard to see what the way out is right now’

Macron called this summer’s snap election in the hope of drawing a line under his centrist coalition’s disastrous results in June’s European elections, and persuading French voters to send a clear message that the far-right National Rally (RN) should not be given power. In the event, his coalition lost more than 80 seats – and although the RN was eventually pushed into third place after victory in the first round, no one bloc has control. The leftwing alliance, the NFP, won the most seats – but fell well short of an absolute majority.

In a country with no tradition of coalition negotiations in a divided parliament, that is not a recipe for stability. After a political truce during the Paris Olympics, Macron is now tasked with naming a prime minister. “But no one group has enough support to ensure clarity,” Kim Willsher said. Macron has said that “nobody won” the election and that a “broad gathering” is necessary; the left say that they finished first and should therefore have the right to choose a prime minister, calling on Macron to be a “referee … not a selector”.

But Macron, who might be expected to chafe at that designation, this week rejected the left’s candidate, Castets. “He brought this on himself,” Kim said. “He was advised not to call this election, but he went ahead and did it. It’s pretty hard to see what the way out is right now.” Meanwhile, the acting government led by Macron loyalist Gabriel Attal staggers on.

Why did Macron reject Castets?

Almost nobody had heard of Castets untill a few weeks ago. A 37-year-old career civil servant who is director of financial affairs at the city hall in Paris, her candidacy was driven by France Unbowed, the party of radical left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

Castets is not a member of the national assembly; until her selection, she did not have a Wikipedia page, and was surprised to get a phone call proposing her candidacy when out for a bike ride. But the fact of her low profile is one of the reasons she was able to gain support across the left, divided over the more familiar candidates under consideration. Also in her favour is her lack of ambition to run for the presidency.

Castets wants to roll back pension reforms that increased the retirement age from 62 to 64, and to improve funding for health care and education by creating a new wealth tax. “But what Macron says is that, yes, you have the support of your bloc, but all these MPs from the other two blocs are against you, so you can’t possibly run a stable government,” Kim said.

One crucial distinction is the one that Macron makes within the left: while he says that other parties in the coalition could form part of what he calls the mainstream “republican forces” that could come together, he excludes France Unbowed from that equation, calling them an “extreme movement” that is guilty of “antisemitism, factionalism” and, “a de facto break with the values of the Republic.”

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“It’s not personal to Castets,” Kim added. “Macron would argue that he’s being responsible by looking for a leader who can command stable support. But nobody else has come up with who that would be.” Appropriately enough, she points out, casse-tête is French for a head-scratcher.

How has the left responded?

Unsurprisingly, France Unbowed is outraged that Macron puts them in the same category of political exclusion as the RN, pointing out that their success was a key reason for the far right’s failure.

France Unbowed and the other members of the left bloc “do not see eye to eye on a lot”, said Kim. “They formed this alliance to see off the far right. So it’s shaky. But it’s holding together so far.” There is little prospect of the alliance collapsing to allow the left-centre coalition that Macron would like.

The NFP has arguably been weakened by Mélenchon’s call for Macron to be impeached – a prospect with little chance of success given the high bar for such a move to succeed, and which was swiftly rejected by others in the coalition. Marine Tondelier of the Greens warned against such a move by saying that “polyphony should not become cacophony”.

Nonetheless, there are those who feel that the left has a legitimate right to be in government given the absence of alternatives. See this editorial in Le Monde yesterday, for example:

“In the absence of any other obvious possibility, it would have been in the interest of democracy for the president to allow the experiment to unfold instead of trying to assert control at all costs in the hope of preserving his policy for as long as possible, even after it has been outvoted. It is harmful to drag out an outgoing government, which acts as if no change had taken place at the ballot box.”

What about the far right?

After the vast disappointment of being squeezed out of power in the final round of the elections, the RN “has been strikingly and uncharacteristically low key over the last few weeks”, Kim said. “We haven’t had much public ranting or big speeches. They have said that they wouldn’t necessarily object to a prime minister from the left, but that France Unbowed cannot be included.”

That may be because the sight of the traditional political forces bickering and failing to find a way through is useful for a party that founds its success on an anti-system narrative.

“It is the hard left which is saying that Macron has stolen the election, that he is being autocratic, that there is a lack of democracy,” Kim said. “National Rally may be hoping that they will profit from the failed machinations of everyone else.”

In this piece for France 24, David Todd, a professor of modern history at Sciences Po university in Paris, says: “I still think they’re going to come out the winners of this political wrangling, because they’re not even involved. By continuing to be excluded, they’re the only ones who won’t look too involved in the political manoeuvres.”

Is there a solution?

If Castets’ candidacy is vanquished, several names have been suggested as possible candidates: perhaps the most plausible to peel away moderate socialists from the leftwing coalition is Bernard Cazeneuve, who was prime minister from 2016 to 2017 under Socialist president François Hollande, but is not part of the NFP because of his opposition to France Unbowed.

But the job is a “poisoned chalice”, said Kim. “Many candidates may question whether they have any chance of making a success of it without a majority, having to fight for every single piece of legislation.” Then there is the matter of the 2027 presidential election, from which Macron is excluded by term limits. “Anyone who wants to be a candidate then will be thinking that this job does not improve their chances.”

“There has to be a solution at some point,” Kim said, a little doubtfully. “Perhaps there will be an agreement to get behind someone pretty anodyne. But it is just as possible that a new prime minister is appointed and the government falls within days – or Macron eventually calls another election. It is going to take a significant compromise to be resolved, and nobody seems to be ready to do that.”

What else we’ve been reading

• Strictly Come Dancing has been upended by scandal in recent months, with allegations of abusive conduct on the part of its professionals. Tara Conlan asks whether there’s hope for what once seemed like the most gentle of all our reality TV contests. Hannah J Davies, deputy editor, newsletters

• “It is nauseating to watch politicians make others pay for their failures while they are rewarded with endless pay cheques,” Owen Jones writes of the likes of Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, who embody the “the new playbook” of rightwing ideologues wrecking things … and then hitting the after-dinner speaker circuit. Charlie Lindlar, newsletters team

• A Which? poll recently named Derby as the worst big UK city for a short break – but is it really true? Phoebe Taplin finds out. Hannah

• Nyima Jobe reports on gen Z’s beauty spending habits, and how social media has only worsened the pressure to conform with a singular vision of beauty. “There’s a lot of pressure online because we see everyone having it done, and then you assume that your face isn’t normal because you don’t look like that,” says one young person of the lip filler look. Charlie

• “I wasn’t any kind of writer before Buddy”: Guardian Stage’s series The play that changed my life continues with Holly Pester’s ode to the Buddy Holly musical. Hannah

Sport

Tennis | Emma Raducanuwas defeated 6-1, 3-6, 6-4 by Sofia Kenin in the first round of the US Open, and said afterwards that she may have been hampered by her decision not to compete for a month before the tournament began. Meanwhile, Dan Evans beat the 23rd seed, Karen Khachanov, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (2), 7-6 (4), 4-6, 6-4 in a 5hr 35min marathon, the longest match in the history of the tournament.

Football | Two goals from Jean-Philippe Mateta helped Crystal Palace to a 4-0 win over Norwich in the Carabao Cup. The biggest shock of the second round came at Barrow, where the League Two side beat the Championship’s Derby 3-2 on penalties after a 0-0 draw.

Football | Chelsea are weighing up whether to make an offer for Brentford’s Ivan Toney as they attempt to sign a striker before the transfer deadline on Friday. The club have also held talks with Manchester United for a swap involving Raheem Sterling and Jadon Sancho.

The front pages

“Time for UK to turn corner on Brexit, says Starmer” is the Guardian print edition’s splash today. “Starmer’s plan for a softer Brexit starts in Germany today” – that’s the i,while the Times has “German deal to ‘turn the corner’ on Brexit”. The domestic economic agenda is to the fore elsewhere. “Starmer’s big ask” says the Daily Mirror after the PM warned of “unpopular decisions” ahead. The Telegraph has “Starmer’s tax alert for middle England” while the Daily Mail is weirdly triumphalist with “Finally Starmer comes clean: he’ll soak middle class” and the Daily Express also seems to perversely enjoy the coming privations: “Yes! It will be‘painful’ for Britain’s elderly this winter”. Top story in the Financial Times is “Starmer sets the stage for tax rises by warning budget is ‘going to be painful’” while the Metro leads with “Stars align … the wait is over!” under the strapline “Fans go crazy as Oasis reunion confirmed”. The Sun leads on a report that guitarist Bonehead will join the reunion: “Three here now”.

Today in Focus

Cartoon of the day | Rebecca Hendin

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

Busisiwe Beko was living with HIV when she became pregnant with her second child, but as an experienced Aids activist who had been taking antiretrovirals for years she didn’t fret for her unborn baby. However, for Beko – who lives in Cape Town, South Africa – another illness came along that threatened both of their health: drug-resistant TB.

Pregnant women have been excluded from drug trials for the deadly infectious disease, but Beko has been pushing for change. The World Health Organization’s first working group on TB during pregnancy held its inaugural meeting in May, featuring researchers, scientists and activists, including Beko, whose son Othandwayo is now 18. “Being pregnant doesn’t mean people can’t make good decisions for themselves,” she says. “Pregnant and lactating women deserve good-quality healthcare just like anyone else.

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