France President Macron rules out leftist PM as crisis continues

France Unbowed (LFI) reacted angrily to the president’s words, with national coordinator Manuel Bompard complaining of an “unacceptable anti-democratic coup”. LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon went further, with a threat to impeach the president.

The party called on youth organisations and other groups to take part in a “big mobilisation” on 7 September, accusing the president of seriously endangering democracy.

Communist leader Fabien Roussel urged the French people to protest wherever they were, “in town centres and in front of prefectures”.

Olivier Faure of the Socialists said he too would take part in demonstrations, if they took place. “I’m not looking for chaos,” he said, “I am saying that’s what is being created by the head of state.”

Lucie Castets, 37, was an unlikely choice of candidate for prime minister. She is financial director at Paris City Hall and as a senior civil servant she is unelected.

She told French radio on Tuesday that the head of state was telling the people of France they had got the vote wrong: “Democracy means nothing to the president and I find that extremely dangerous.”

Both Ensemble and National Rally, whose leaders met the president on Monday, have vowed to vote down candidates from the NFP. RN leaders Marine le Pen and Jordan Bardella described the NFP as a “danger” for France.

President Macron has sought to form a government made up of “republican forces”, which excludes both the far-right National Rally and the radical France Unbowed.

Among other potential candidates named in political circles as France’s next prime minister are former Socialist interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve and Xavier Bertrand, who is a regional leader from the centre-right Republicans.

The current caretaker Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, said on Tuesday that, as a as a “great republican”, Mr Cazeneuve could well work out as head of a coalition.

Rejecting France Unbowed as dangerous, he told French TV “a New Popular Front government has no chance of surviving in power for more than a day”.