(Bloomberg) -- French lawmakers reelected a centrist candidate from Emmanuel Macron’s party to lead the National Assembly in a sign the president’s coalition may be best placed to form a new government after he dissolved the legislature last month.
Yael Braun-Pivet of Macron’s pro-business Renaissance party narrowly won the vote for parliamentary president by 13 ballots, with the support of centrist and center-right lawmakers from outside her alliance. The left-wing New Popular Front coalition, which holds the most seats in the lower house, cried foul over its loss.
The National Assembly has been left divided between three primary groups following the July 7 snap election — the New Popular Front, the centrist Ensemble that has the second-most seats, and Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally in third — with none holding enough seats to be able to form a government on their own. This has thrown France into political chaos as parties squabble over who should form the next administration.
“This assembly is more divided than ever,” Braun-Pivet said after the vote. “We have to find other ways of functioning to seek more dialog, more compromise.”
While Braun-Pivet’s election isn’t directly related to the appointment of a prime minister or the formation of a new government, it could give an indication about which coalitions are able to unite behind a single candidate in sufficient numbers.
Macron is constitutionally empowered to pick a new prime minister and it’s been accepted practice to appoint someone from the biggest group in the National Assembly. As a counterweight, lawmakers in the lower house can vote to bring down the government through a no-confidence motion.
This means choosing a premier with broad enough appeal to stay in place and build majorities on a case-by-case basis to pass legislation.
Thursday’s vote, which pitted Braun-Pivet against five rivals, sheds some light on how the decision-making may play out. She was unable to secure an absolute majority in two rounds of voting, but was elected in the third round when the candidate with the most votes wins.
“Her victory is the result of an aggregate of alliances between groups that don’t form — for the moment — a political line,” Melody Mock-Gruet, an expert in parliamentary affairs who teaches at Sciences Po, said in an interview. “She will be the president of a fragmented assembly with no absolute majority.”
Macron has called for all parties that support the European Union and the rule of law to come together to form a government, in an effort to form a mainstream alliance that would exclude both the far-right and the far-left party France Unbowed. This approach would allow Macron’s government to continue, even though it would be in a weakened form.
Macron’s maneuvers to seize control have angered opponents, particularly the coalition on the left.
“We’re the only coherent political force responding to the aspirations of the French people,” Boris Vallaud, who leads the Socialists in the National Assembly, told reporters after Thursday’s vote, adding that Macron needed to appoint a premier from the New Popular Front. “Today, we have mixed feelings of anger and determination — anger because the French people have been robbed today.”
‘Republican Forces’
While the New Popular Front says they should get to choose the next prime minister, infighting has so far prevented them from agreeing on a candidate for the job.
Macron has kept out of the domestic spotlight since his succession of election defeats, breaking his silence only to call for a broad group of “republican forces” to rally together to form a governing coalition. This de facto group excluded Le Pen’s party but also France Unbowed, which is the biggest party within the New Popular Front.
The leftist alliance has been struggling to put forward an agreed candidate to be prime minister, while Macron has asked outgoing French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to remain in place at the head of a caretaker government with limited powers.
“The result will cut the impulse of the New Popular Front, which could have put a lot more pressure if they had won this battle,” Mock-Gruet said.
The president of the National Assembly, who is third in line after the president of the republic, organizes the agenda and gives legislators permission to speak during debates. The person can block a bill if they consider it doesn’t meet legal criteria. The head of the lower house must also be consulted by the French president in times of crisis and has the power to appoint three of the nine members of the Constitutional Council, France’s highest court.
“I feel disappointed,” Vallaud said on France 2. “But I’m also angry because when I put myself in the place of voters fundamentally nothing has changed after the election.”
(Updates with Boris Vallaud in the final paragraph.)
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