Far-left threaten to impeach Macron for ‘refusal to act on legislative results’

Far-left party La France Insoumise has launched impeachment proceedings against President Macron, accusing him of “refusal to act” on the results of the legislative elections.

This action is “condemnable” and goes against the “duties of the presidential mandate”, the party’s signatories have written in an open letter published in La Tribune du Dimanche on August 18.

‘We are writing this open letter as a solemn warning,” the writers state. Signatories include the leader of La France Insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon; the party's coordinator, Manuel Bompard; and the leader of the LFI MPs, Mathilde Panot. 

The letter also puts forwards the party’s aim to impeach Mr Macron.

Emmanuel Macron “should know that all constitutional means will be used to remove him rather than subjecting us to this move against the basic rule of democracy. In France, the only master is the popular vote”, the letter continued.

Mr Macron is set to hold a meeting this Friday (August 23) with a view to forming a new government. This is around a month and a half after the legislative elections, as there was a delay due to the Paris Olympics taking place.

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However, La France Insoumise is claiming that Mr Macron is “about to appoint a head of government without taking into account the political result” of these elections.

The letter cites Article 68 of the Constitution, which allows Parliament to impeach the president for “failing in their duties that are manifestly incompatible with the exercise of their mandate”.

However, successfully enacting this process would need to make it through parliament first. Procedure requires the Assemblée and Senate to set themselves up as a form of ‘high court’. This would require a two-thirds majority in each chamber, followed by a vote by all MPs.

This would probably be a challenge for the LFI, given that it currently does not have much support for its stance among other parties.

Head of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, has said that his party would not support a procedure to impeach Mr Macron. He said that he would prefer “censorship”, and reiterated on X (Twitter) that the open letter had only been supported by LFI.

Who could be prime minister?

On July 26, Mr Macron ruled out the possibility of appointing Nouveau Front Populaire candidate Lucie Castets to the role of prime minister, saying that she would not be able to gather enough support in the Assemblée to govern. 

Since then, other possible names rumoured to be in the running have included Xavier Bertrand (currently president of the regional council of Hauts-de-France) and Bernard Cazeneuve, former Manche MP and former prime minister (from December 6, 2016 to May 15, 2017). 

However, these names have not been confirmed.