Defiant Macron seeks new PM, exit from crisis

PARIS, France (AFP) — President Emmanuel Macron on Friday was to hold talks with political factions as he seeks to name a new prime minister and find a way out of France’s political crisis.

Macron adopted a defiant tone in an address to the nation late Thursday, 24 hours after Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government was ousted in a historic no-confidence vote.

Macron vowed to name a new prime minister in the coming days, rejected growing pressure from the opposition to resign and blamed an “anti-republican front” of the hard left and far right for France’s woes.

Contemporary France’s shortest-serving premier, Barnier resigned after Wednesday’s parliamentary defeat in a standoff over the budget forced his government to step down, the first such toppling of a French administration in more than 60 years.

“I will appoint a prime minister in the coming days,” Macron said, adding this person would be charged with forming a “government of general interest” with a priority of passing a budget.

The French presidency said earlier that Barnier and his ministers would remain “in charge of daily business until the appointment of a new government”.

Macron is on Friday to meet leaders of the parliamentary factions of his own centrist forces, the Socialist Party and the right-wing Republicans to continue the search for a compromise, presidential sources said.

The hard-left France Unbowed and far-right National Rally have not been invited at this stage.