Macron faces first challenges ahead of swearing in
>> PARIS: Tensions over president-elect Emmanuel Macron’s bid to redraw France’s political map burst into the open on Friday as a key ally was briefly angered ahead of crucial parliamentary elections next month.
Mr Macron annoyed fellow centrist Francois Bayrou and faced mockery from his opponents after his La Republique En Marche (REM, Republic on the Move) party unveiled more than 400 candidates for crucial parliamentary elections in June.
“It’s a big recycling operation for the Socialist party,” Mr Bayrou told L’Obs magazine, adding that candidates from his MoDem party had been offered only 35 constituencies instead of the 120 he expected.
Mr Bayrou, a veteran centrist and presidential candidate, threw his support behind Mr Macron at the end of February at a crucial time when the 39-yearold president-elect’s campaign needed new momentum.
“When I offered him my support, he was at 18%,” Mr Bayrou added bitterly.
However, by Friday evening Mr Bayrou announced a “solid and balanced” draft agreement had been reached with Mr Macron’s party regarding the list of candidates, putting an end to 24 hours of tension.
Mr Macron, who will be inaugurated today, has promised to refresh France’s parliament and his party unveiled 428 out of 577 candidates on Thursday.
Half of them have never held elected office, including a retired female bullfighter and a star mathematician, and half of them are women. The initial reaction from three out of four voters was positive, a survey published on Friday by the Harris Interactive polling group suggested.
“Probably the biggest success of Emmanuel Macron is having motivated so many people who were outside of politics to have committed themselves to try to renew things,” his spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said on Friday.
But as well as angering Mr Bayrou, REM was forced to correct its list after around 10 people said they had not agreed to stand for the party or had never applied to be a candidate.
One was Mourad Boudjellal, the wealthy president of Toulon rugby club, who said that while he was flattered about being approached, “it is not my ambition” to enter politics.
The vice-president of the far-right National Front, Florian Philippot, accused Mr Macron of “amateurism”.
The parliamentary selection process is seen as a tricky and risky balancing act for Mr Macron, who will take over from unpopular Socialist Francois Hollande. Without his own parliamentary majority, the former investment banker will find it hard to push through his planned reforms of the labour market, pensions, unemployment benefits and education.
Mr Macron, a former economy minister in Mr Hollande’s government, has so far failed to attract centrist members of the rightwing Republicans party, but still believes some will cross over before he announces his final list on Wednesday. Before then, he faces other crucial decisions on his staff at the Elysee Palace and his first government.
The most important will be his choice for prime minister, who will head the government until at least the parliamentary elections on June 11 and 18 and perhaps beyond.
Amid feverish speculation in the French media — will he pick a loyal supporter or someone from the rightwing Republicans? — nothing has leaked from his small group of aides.
The choice will send a strong signal about Mr Macron’s intentions, and he has promised to pick someone with past experience of parliament and capable of managing a majority. His declared preference is for a woman.
Immediately after his swearing-in, Mr Macron will head to Berlin to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel to start discussions about his ambitious plans for reforming the European Union.
Mr Macron wants to deepen integration in the 19-country eurozone, giving the zone its own budget, and wants to toughen the EU’s response to “unfair” industrial competition from countries such as China.
Once in office, the new president will have to decide how to press ahead with his controversial plans to loosen labour laws in France — the centrepiece of his effort to fight unemployment. The country’s powerful trade unions and other leftwing opponents are expected to contest the move with mass demonstrations of the kind seen when Mr Hollande tried to alter labour laws last year.