French left agrees on consensus candidate for prime minister

PARIS: Left-wing French parties said Tuesday they had chosen a little-known economist as prospective prime minister, after butting heads for weeks over a name since winning snap elections.

The New Popular Front (NFP) pick Lucie Castets is an economist and senior civil servant with a background in “fighting tax evasion and financial crime” as well as campaigning for public services, the alliance said in a statement.

Working for the Paris city government, Castets is a total unknown to the wider public.

Although the consensus appears to put an end to infighting in the fractious grouping of Socialists, Greens, Communists and hard-left France Unbowed (LFI), hurdles remain before Castets can be installed at the head of a possible new left-wing government.

The NFP has 193 seats in the National Assembly lower house following July 7’s second-round poll, against 164 for President Emmanuel Macron´s centrists and 143 for the far-right National Rally (RN) and its allies. But that is still well short of a majority in the 577-seat body, and any government needs to be able to survive a confidence vote in the chamber or risk immediate ejection.

The 37-year-old Castets told AFP she had accepted the nomination “with great humility but also great conviction”, believing herself a “serious and credible candidate” for PM. Castets added that one of her top priorities would be to “repeal the pension reform” that Macron pushed through last year, triggering widespread protests and discontent, as well as a “major tax reform so everyone pays their fair share”. It is President Macron himself who must nominate any new prime minister.

When presidents have seen the opposition take control of parliament in the past, they have accepted prime ministers put forward by the new majority. But the situation is unclear when no single bloc or alliance can marshal control of the chamber.

Macron has left Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and his ministers in place in a caretaker capacity that he said could last “several weeks” -- at least until after the Olympic Games that start this Friday and run until August 11.

He will likely face questions on the push from the left in a prime-time TV interview later Tuesday.