White smoke on the horizon? Michel Barnier guarantees that it is in the final stretch of forming a government in France, holding its “final” consultations on Thursday.
The Prime Minister will meet at 3:00 p.m. (French time, 4:00 p.m. Greek time) with the political parties that have taken part in a consultation with the aim of “rapidly forming” a government. He will meet with the presidents of the National Assembly and the Senate.
Michel Barnier has spoken specifically so far with representatives of the presidential camp (Renaissance, Horizons and MoDem), the Liot group (Libertés, indépendants, outre-mer et territoires) and the Republicans.
The elected communist representatives, who nevertheless met with Michel Barnier last Tuesday, will not be in Matignon this afternoon.
Two meetings in 48 hours
However, recently there has been relative tension with the Macronists and the French president himself during the consultations, but also with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and the Left.
The Prime Minister saw Macron at least twice in forty-eight hours.
As Le Figaro revealed, he went to the Champs Elysées at midday on Wednesday, after a meeting the previous day. The content of the conversations between the two men remains shrouded in mystery. But according to regular sources, the discussion between them about the composition of the new government team suddenly became tense.
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The President of FranceBarnier allegedly did not approve the list of government ministers proposed to him by the Prime Minister, as reported by the French newspaper Le Monde. Based on this information, the list was allegedly presented by Barnier during his visit to the Élysée Palace last Tuesday and for this purpose they met again on Wednesday.
Macron’s representatives have called the proposed list of candidates for ministerial posts “one-sided”, drawing attention to the large number of candidates from the Republican Party, from which Barnier comes, which received around 5.7% of the vote in the July elections.
According to Le Monde, Barnier planned to give his party’s candidates up to a third of all ministerial posts, including the crucial finance, justice and interior ministries.
Sources at the Elysee Palace say Macron does not want to fully control the next French government, but wants to avoid ministers from a single party as he hopes to form a cabinet of “national unity” that would allow for a balance between France’s political forces.
However, Le Monde points out that there was another reason for disagreement between Macron and Barnier: the French Prime Minister’s plans for a possible tax increase due to the difficult state of the French economy.
naftemporiki.gr with information from Le Monde, Le Figaro