Last ditch talks between the French far right and Prime Minister Francois Bayrou did not achieve any breakthrough, its leaders said Tuesday, heightening the chances that he will lose a confidence vote next week.
Three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and her right-hand-man and National Rally (RN) party leader Jordan Bardella urged swift snap legislative elections after the vote in parliament on Monday to end a months-long standoff over the budget.
“Jordan and I are calling for an extremely rapid dissolution (of parliament),” Le Pen said alongside Bardella after one hour of talks with Bayrou at his offices in Paris.
Bardella added: “The sooner we return to the polls, the sooner France will have a budget.”
There was “no miracle” in the meeting which “will not change the National Rally’s mind,” he added. Analysts expect Bayrou and his government to fall on Monday after just over half a year in office, with both the far right and left-wing parties vowing to vote against his minority administration.
President Emmanuel Macron will then need to decide if he reappoints Bayrou, chooses a new premier who would be the seventh government chief of his presidency, or calls snap legislative elections.
He could also resign, as called for by the hard left, but he has repeatedly ruled out this course of action.
Six days ahead of the vote, Macron summoned the chiefs of the minority group of centrist and right-wing parties who back Bayrou and the president for a meeting at the Elysee.
He urged them to work with the Socialist Party (PS), said a participant who asked not to be named, in the head of state’s latest bid to woo the PS away from a union with the hard-left and Greens.
PS leader Olivier Faure has insisted a future prime minister must come from the left if the party is to consider cooperating.
All the party leaders present at the meeting, who included Gabriel Attal, the ex-premier who leads Macron’s own centrist party, expressed their opposition to calling snap elections should the government fall on Monday.
But former president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is known to retain informal contact with Macron despite a conviction for graft, said there was “no other solution” to France’s political crisis other than snap elections.
Speaking to Le Figaro, he described Bayrou’s decision to call the confidence vote next Monday as “political suicide”.
