Mitterand (socialist) in '86 had to have Chirac as a PM even though he was conservative, Chirac had to nominate Jospin in '97 even though he was a socialist.
However, France is in an extraordinary moment where legislative elections didnt bring absolute majority to any party or coalition. And there is no bloc that is remotely close to it. NFP is the biggest coalition and has 193 congressmen, the absolute majority is 287
In 2022, it was the first time a governmnent didn't have absolute majority, technically. But Republicans even technically in opposition voted with the government creating an absolute majority for Macron as some kind of Rightwing coalition.
The results of the March 21st censorship last year showed that even further. Even if some Republicans did vote for it, most refused, therefore allowing the government to continue. If they were really opposition, they would have voted for the gov to fall, which it almost did.
So there is no precedent for what's happening currently.
And for the record, NFP is not a party but a coalition, same for the Macronist one. If a party "won" last time, it was RN who got the most congressmen and which as a party had more votes than any coalition (37% voted for them...
).
Now, I think Macron should have pressed the parties to work in a German style coalition with a NFP PM. By outright refusing this, even after Melenchon said he was ok with 0 LFI ministers, is disrespectful to the left which made sure to counter RN and thanks to them gave the Macronist coalition a far bigger number of congressmen that they were predicted.
However, his reasonning does have some sense when talking about a purely NFP government. With nobody close to an absolute majority the political maths is upside down. It's not really about which coalition can get to 287, it's which coalition can make sure that they don't have 287 people against them.
Because when you have absolute majority, the government cannot fall as there is no 287 votes to approve a censorship. That's why it is usual to nominate a PM from the party who wins those elections because they usually had those 287+ congressmen.
And yes the current government is still active but we're in some sort of lame duck situation where they just do the bare minimum to have the country rolling before the new gov gets nominated. It's not a coup at all, we're just in the unprecendented
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