One name was on the French president’s mind Emmanuel Macron in her television interview on Tuesday night: Celine Dion.
The 56-year-old Canadian singer, although seriously ill, arrived suddenly in Paris ahead of tomorrow’s Olympic Games.
The famous singer who caused a global sensation for her battle with Hard Atom Syndrome will reportedly sing alongside Lady Gaga at the Games’ Opening Ceremony.
“I don’t want to reveal anything,” Macron said in the interview, but with a smile that suggested he knew more.
After all, the French president is much more concerned with another name, which suddenly emerged in recent days as a candidate for Prime Minister of France: Lucie Caste, the 37-year-old prosecutor, who was nominated by the New Popular Front as a candidate to take over the post of Prime Minister of the country.
The left-wing alliance of the Socialists, Greens, Communists and France Insubordinate emerged after early elections as the leading force in the French National Assembly and is therefore pressuring Macron to give Caste the mandate to form a government.
But Macron avoided taking a position, stressing only that “now it is only time for the Olympic Games”, which begin on Friday.
Therefore, he will not appoint a prime minister until the elections are over in mid-August.
Under the French constitution, the president has the right to appoint a head of government of his choosing. Given that Macron insists that “nobody won the elections,” he believes he has relative freedom to choose a prime minister.
Extensive CV
A graduate of the prestigious Ecole Normale Superieure, Lucie Caste also studied political science at Sciences Po University, but had never been involved in politics before. She describes herself as a “committed left-wing woman”.
Caste is a finance specialist in senior public services and is currently responsible for the finances of the City of Paris.
He is recognized in the professional community for his fight against financial crime, tax justice, and the improvement of public services. Co-founder of the civil servants’ union “Nossos Serviços Públicos”, formed in 2021, Caste caused a stir in November 2022, accusing the private management consultancy McKinsey of “excessive power in the state”.
Lucie Caste also criticised the Minister of Civil Service, Stanislas Guerini, for reducing the number of civil servants by around 180,000 between 2006 and 2018 – while at the same time the use of private consultancy firms had “exploded”, causing huge costs “and often, without doing anything.”
In his radio interview, Caste even accused Macron in his interview yesterday of being a “denier of democracy” because he refuses to give him the mandate to form a government.
He even ruled out the possibility of a coalition government with Macron’s party, saying it would be “impossible due to the big ideological differences.” Some “want more tax justice, others favor tax breaks for the rich,” he said.
“Olympic Truce”
However, according to today’s Elabe poll for BFMTV, nearly six in ten French people (58%) believe that Macron should not appoint Caste as prime minister. On the contrary, 41% of those interviewed believe that the president should give him the mandate to form a government.
72% believe that the Macronist bloc and the left and right parties that blocked Marine Le Pen’s National Rally will not be able to finally reach an agreement on the formation of a stable government.
For the majority of respondents (60%), Emmanuel Macron remains the main person responsible for the current political crisis. 59% of French people are finally in favour of a “political truce” during the Olympics.