Macron’s ‘Olympic truce’ defers political decisions about new government 

By Monica Sestito

France will remain without a new government until at least late August 2024, in what President Emmanuel Macron has dubbed an “Olympic political truce.” 

In an interview with France 2 television before the opening ceremony, Macron asserted that stability during the Olympics was paramount and could only be ensured by the existing caretaker government. “We are not in a position to change things since it would create disorder,” he said.  

The notion of an Olympic political truce alludes to the historic precedent of nation-states ceasing hostilities during the games. This allusion is fitting, given the level of hostility between counterposed forces in French politics vying for decisive influence in the formation of a new legislature. 

After calling snap parliamentary elections in response to being crushed by the far right in the July European elections, Macron’s centrist block Ensemble emerged on even shakier political footing. His party lost 76 seats, with the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) alliance emerging as the strongest electoral block and the political force largely credited with halting the victory of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party. 

French tradition encourages the president to nominate a prime minister from the largest parliamentary block to avoid a vote of no confidence in the new legislature. This is not, however, compulsory, and Macron has readily dragged his feet in nominating a new prime minister, firstly by refusing to countenance the idea of a NFP victory and now by effectively embargoing any developments towards forming a new government until after the Olympics. 

Macron’s stalling has angered many, not least of all the NFP, many of whose leading figures have characterised the president’s tactics as downright authoritarianism and a prelude to his grouping forging an alliance with the conservative right to govern. 

Green leader Marine Tondelier has ridiculed Macron’s self-imposed “Olympic political truce” as “totally disconnected from reality.” Meanwhile, Socialist leader Olivier Faure has denounced his decision to delay appointing a prime minister from the NFP as “a criminal diversion.” 

The NFP, for its part, only recently emerged from vexed internal disputes over their preferred candidate for prime minister, nominating a little-known Parisian official Lucie Castets days before the Olympics began. 

Like Macron, Castets is an alumnus of the elite École nationale d’administration and a long-serving public servant. She has served as Paris’ Chief Financial Officer since last October 2023, and until recently has generally maintained a low public profile––aside from an episode in 2022 when she publicly condemned the then-Minister of Public Service, Stanislas Guérini, for the government’s indulgent attitude towards consultancy firms and their alleged interference into French electoral campaigns. 

Accounts of Castets’ credentials for the role vary wildly. The most moderate defence of her competence has come from her boss, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who has praised her skills in financial management. Communist Senator Ian Brossat, a former colleague of Castets in the administration of Parisian public housing, assured more left-wing supporters of the NFP that she is “more than just a competent technocrat.”

“She’s someone with an authentically left-wing, progressive political vision,” he declared. 

To the extent that Castets has addressed the key priorities of her “progressive political vision,” she has emphasised her refusal to form a coalition with Macron and her commitment to rolling back his despised reform to the pension system imposed amidst of wave of social revolt last year. 

It remains to be seen whether her candidacy carries weight within the French political establishment. According to confidential disclosures obtained by Politico from conservative French politicians, Castets’ candidacy represents a concerning notion that governance can be “improvised.” 

While uncertainty continues to hang over the French political scene, Macron has cast the Olympics as an allegory of the unifying power of the political centre. 

“I could have said it’s impossible to organise an Olympic Games with a Socialist mayor, a conservative Paris regional president, and a French president from the centre,” he told the media. “But we did it.” 

Time will tell if he can achieve a similar feat in political unity regarding the composition of the new government.