COPY LINK

POLITICS

‘It’s decided’: Macron set to reveal name of new French prime minister

President Emmanuel Macron was set to end the ongoing suspense around who will be France's new prime minister at the start of this week by revealing who will succeed outgoing PM Jean Castex. But who will it be?

Published: 14 May 2022 11:16 CEST
Updated: 16 May 2022 09:27 CEST

'It's decided': Macron set to reveal name of new French prime minister

France's President Emmanuel Macron (R) shakes hands with France's Prime Minister Jean Castex (L) at the Arc de Triomphe as part of the ceremonies marking the Allied victory against Nazi Germany and the end of World War II in Europe (VE Day), in Paris on May 8, 2022. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / POOL / AFP)

French President Emmanuel Macron formally began his second term in office on Saturday and has maintained suspense about his new government ahead of parliamentary elections next month that will shape his next five years in power.

The 44-year-old scored a solid victory in presidential polls on April 24th against far-right leader Marine Le Pen, but still needs a majority in parliament to be able to push through his domestic reform agenda.

The identity of Macron’s new government is expected to set the tone for campaigning, with the president suggesting he intends to name only the second woman prime minister in modern French history.

The announcement is expected on Monday but Macron has seemed in no rush so far so we shouldn’t be surprised if the suspense lasts a little longer.

An opinion poll in the weekly Journal du Dimanche newspaper on Sunday showed that 74 percent of the French public would prefer a female prime minister.

“For the last 15 days it’s all been about finding the woman,” one Macron aide told the JDD newspaper. However another Macron ally warned that the president could yet throw up a surprise by naming a man after all.

The country hasn’t had a woman PM since Edith Cresson was appointed by President François Mitterrand in 1991.

Speculation has been rife in the French media, with UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay and current Labour Minister Elisabeth Borne seen as possible candidates, but Macron has taken his time to name a replacement for outgoing Premier Jean Castex, who will officially resign this week.

“It’s been decided, but no one knows who it is,” a presidential advisor told AFP on condition of anonymity. An announcement is expected early next week.

Macron’s Republic on the Move party has been renamed Renaissance ahead of the parliamentary polls on June 12 and 19, with several centrist and centre-right parties set to compete under the collective pro-Macron banner of “Together”.

France’s splintered left-wing parties have also agreed a tie-up under the leadership of former Trotskyist Jean-Luc Melenchon who has set his sights on a parliamentary majority to thwart Macron’s plans.

“To go from around 60 MPs (in the current parliament) to a majority is highly improbable, but the dynamic created by the new union could mean they make major progress,” Frederic Dabi, head of the Ifop polling group, told AFP this week.

Le Pen’s National Rally and France’s ailing mainstream right-wing party, the Republicans, are also hoping to bounce back from their disappointment in the presidential election by securing significant representation in the 577-seat parliament.

‘Combination of challenges’

Macron won re-election with promises to continue his broadly pro-business and pro-EU policies of his first term, with more tax cuts, welfare reform and pledged a new emphasis on environmental protection for the next five years.

The biggest change is expected to be in his style of governing. The former investment banker repeatedly promised “a new method” that will be less top-down — a move designed to tackle his reputation for elitism and high-handedness.

“For it to work, there needs to be results that are concrete and visible to people,” Bernard Sananes, the head of polling group Elabe, told AFP. “If it’s just about showing you’re listening to people, that’s great but it won’t be enough.”

Others wonder whether the more consultative style is in keeping with the temperament of a president who is known to centralise decision-making and once theorised that French people wanted a king-like figure at the centre of national life.

His short-term domestic priority is expected to be tackling a cost-of-living crisis that dominated the presidential campaign due to sharp rises in energy prices and other goods linked to product shortages and the war in Ukraine.

In foreign policy, where Macron will have a free hand as president irrespective of the parliamentary result, he has promised to work to deepen the 27-member European Union while managing the fallout from the Ukraine conflict.

Macron has positioned himself as a key link to the Kremlin through his regular talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, while also authorising weapons deliveries to Ukraine and offering the partly occupied country his full support.

“Rarely has our world and our country been confronted with such a combination of challenges,” Macron said as he was inaugurated for his second term on May 7th.

Member comments

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.