©(STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP)
French President Emmanuel Macron will break his silence on Tuesday to clarify his intentions after the legislative elections and define the “Olympic and political truce” he is invoking, in the face of a left that is still clamoring to govern despite its divisions and a right that is proposing an a minima agreement.
Accused by his opponents of failing to acknowledge his defeat in the June 30 and July 7 elections, Emmanuel Macron will be interviewed at 8:10 pm (18:10 GMT) on the public television and radio channels France 2, France Inter and franceinfo. With just 3 days to go until the opening ceremony, the interview will focus on the Olympic Games, which now occupy his entire agenda.
But he will also return to the situation created by his controversial dissolution of the National Assembly: the President has remained virtually silent on this subject, expressing himself only in a letter to the French after the second round, in which he called on the “republican forces” to “build a solid majority”.
On Monday, on the sidelines of his many Olympic commitments, he spoke of a “political truce” for the duration of the Olympic Games, which will last until August 11, before the Paralympic Games from August 28 to September 8.
“The French now want a little rest” to ‘get back to the Games’, he pleaded, referring the negotiations to secure a majority to the partisan backrooms. “It's up to the politicians to get on with the job”, he said, all in keeping with his new motto of ‘president who presides’, taking a step back from seven years of governing in minute detail.
So far, Emmanuel Macron has set no deadline for appointing a Prime Minister to replace the resigning Gabriel Attal, who is in charge of current affairs.
His entourage told AFP on Monday that an appointment was unlikely before the Olympic Games, “unless there is a tremendous acceleration” in the negotiations.
But a truce “is quite simply an interruption of democracy, and for us it's unacceptable”, protested Mathilde Panot, leader of the deputies of La France insoumise (LFI, radical left), on Tuesday. She criticized the president, like his left-wing allies, for his “refusal to appoint to Matignon” a representative of the left-wing alliance Nouveau Front populaire.
With AFP
Accused by his opponents of failing to acknowledge his defeat in the June 30 and July 7 elections, Emmanuel Macron will be interviewed at 8:10 pm (18:10 GMT) on the public television and radio channels France 2, France Inter and franceinfo. With just 3 days to go until the opening ceremony, the interview will focus on the Olympic Games, which now occupy his entire agenda.
But he will also return to the situation created by his controversial dissolution of the National Assembly: the President has remained virtually silent on this subject, expressing himself only in a letter to the French after the second round, in which he called on the “republican forces” to “build a solid majority”.
On Monday, on the sidelines of his many Olympic commitments, he spoke of a “political truce” for the duration of the Olympic Games, which will last until August 11, before the Paralympic Games from August 28 to September 8.
“The French now want a little rest” to ‘get back to the Games’, he pleaded, referring the negotiations to secure a majority to the partisan backrooms. “It's up to the politicians to get on with the job”, he said, all in keeping with his new motto of ‘president who presides’, taking a step back from seven years of governing in minute detail.
So far, Emmanuel Macron has set no deadline for appointing a Prime Minister to replace the resigning Gabriel Attal, who is in charge of current affairs.
His entourage told AFP on Monday that an appointment was unlikely before the Olympic Games, “unless there is a tremendous acceleration” in the negotiations.
But a truce “is quite simply an interruption of democracy, and for us it's unacceptable”, protested Mathilde Panot, leader of the deputies of La France insoumise (LFI, radical left), on Tuesday. She criticized the president, like his left-wing allies, for his “refusal to appoint to Matignon” a representative of the left-wing alliance Nouveau Front populaire.
With AFP
This Is Beirut
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