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Macron Delays Announcing New French Govt. to Wednesday | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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French flags flutter as President Emmanuel Macron arrives to lay a wreath on the unknown Soldier’s tomb at the Arc of Triomphe monument after his formal inauguration on May 14. (AFP)


The announcement of the government of newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron has been delayed to Wednesday, his office said on Tuesday.

It was initially supposed to be unveiled on Tuesday, but his office explained that the delay will ensure that all future ministers had been thoroughly vetted and there were no conflicts of interest.

The official announcement would take place on Wednesday at 1500 (1300 GMT).

Meanwhile, a leading French conservative accused Macron of “dynamiting” the political landscape on Tuesday as he put together a government that is expected to include former rivals on both left and right.

Macron wants to break through the left-right divide that has dominated the euro zone’s second-largest economy for decades, and so is drawing in figures from outside his year-old centrist Republic on the Move (REM) party to complete his list of ministers, expected on Wednesday.

“We want to bring people together, beyond old divides that have become pointless,” REM’s secretary general Richard Ferrand told France Inter radio.

The divide-and-conquer tactics by the centrist Macron, elected on May 7, are spreading alarm in the Socialist party and the conservative Republicans (LR), both of which are still licking their wounds after their presidential defeat.

They fear he will poach more of their leading figures as he tries to widen his political base before crucial parliamentary elections in June.

In a sign of that concern, LR senior lawmaker Francois Baroin disowned party colleague Edouard Philippe for accepting Macron’s offer of the job of prime minister on Monday.

“What Emmanuel Macron is proposing is dynamiting not political reshaping,” Baroin told BFM TV.

Baroin is leading LR’s campaign for the parliamentary elections, which will be key for his party’s future as well as Macron’s chances of carrying out his pro-business, pro-EU policies.

Benoit Hamon, who gathered just over 6 percent of the votes for the Socialist Party in the first round of the presidential election in April, said left-wingers did not belong in the upcoming government.

“Who can think that the Left will pull itself together if it is part of a coalition led by a member of The Republicans party?” he said.

But the list of those tipped to be part of the government included veteran Socialists, as well as conservatives, centrists and newcomers to French politics. Macron has said he wants a team of maximum 15 ministers, fewer than in the outgoing Socialist administration.

Among the names being touted by French media are three veteran socialists: former Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe, the outgoing defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and ex-World Trade Organization boss Pascal Lamy.

There are also centrists, including Modem party leader Francois Bayrou and EU lawmaker Sylvie Goulard, a former adviser to former European Commission president Romano Prodi.

Conservatives whose names are being floated include LR lawmakers Bruno le Maire and Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet as well as Thierry Breton, who was economy minister under conservative President Jacques Chirac.

An overwhelming majority want politicians from the Left, Right and center to be included in the government, a Harris Interactive poll showed on Tuesday.

But in a sign of how little known France’s new prime minister is, 57 percent of those surveyed said they did not know him well enough to say if his appointment was a good or a bad thing, while just under a third said this was a good thing.

Some conservative lawmakers said they doubted Macron could poach any big names. “The heavyweights won’t give in,” a source close to former Prime Minister Alain Juppe said.

But over 20 LR members of parliament, including some party heavyweights and former ministers, issued a joint statement on Monday urging the party to positively respond to the “hand extended by the president”.

While the head of France’s main employers group Medef, Pierre Gattaz, said Macron’s first days in office were “faultless”, the head of the country’s largest union, the CFDT, warned him not to “go at it with an axe” to carry out his planned business-friendly reforms.

“No one wants him to fail. We don’t know what would happen if he did, there could even be violent clashes,” he told Les Echos daily in an interview, urging him to consult unions.