France's New PM Says To Form Government 'next Week'

Reims, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 12th Sep, 2024) France will have a new government next week, recently installed conservative Prime Minister Michel Barnier said on Wednesday, as he sounded out candidates to run ministries faced with an unpredictable hung parliament.

"We're going to do things methodically and seriously," Barnier told reporters in the eastern city of Reims.

He was "listening to everybody" in a political scene split into three broad camps since July's inconclusive snap parliamentary elections.

"We're going to name a government next week," he said.

Later on Wednesday, his own right-wing Republicans (LR) party announced that they were ready to join his government. The party was reduced to just 47 deputies in the 577-seat National Assembly in July's elections.

Barnier, who has previously served as the environment, foreign and agriculture ministers and was the EU's former chief Brexit negotiator, was named last week by President Emmanuel Macron as his compromise pick for head of government.

With no longer even a working majority in parliament following his decision to dissolve the National Assembly, Macron delayed picking a PM for weeks over the summer as he tried to find someone who would not suffer an immediate no-confidence vote.

The chamber is fairly equally divided between Macron's centrist supporters -- now loosely allied with Barnier's rump conservative party -- the left-wing NFP alliance and the far-right National Rally (RN).

NFP leaders have vowed to vote no confidence in any government not headed by them after they secured the most seats in the July vote, but fell well short of a majority.