French election winners move to impeach Macron

The LFI argues that democracy should be protected from the president’s “authoritarian leanings”.

The France Unbowed (LFI) party, part of a broad left-wing coalition that secured the largest share of seats in the July parliamentary election, is gathering signatures to remove President Emmanuel Macron from office.

The move comes after Macron refused to appoint the New Popular Front coalition’s candidate – Lucie Castets – as prime minister.

“The draft resolution to initiate the procedure for the impeachment of the President of the Republic, in accordance with Article 68 of the Constitution, was sent today to parliamentarians for co-signatures,” the LFI’s parliamentary leader, Mathilde Panot, wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday.

To initiate the impeachment process, the LFI, which has 72 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, must collect signatures from at least 10% of the members of parliament under its motion. Article 68 of the French Constitution stipulates that the action could be implemented “in the event of a breach of duty manifestly incompatible with the exercise of his mandate.”

“Macron refuses to submit to the people’s vote, so we must dismiss him,” Panot explained, sharing the draft of the resolution, which stated that “the National Assembly (lower house) and Senate can and must defend democracy against the president’s authoritarian leanings.”

The lawmakers argued that it is not up to the president “to do political horse trading,” referring to Macron’s struggle to find a new prime minister since accepting Gabriel Attal’s resignation last month.

The LFI is part of the New Popular Front alliance (NFP) – along with the Socialists, Communists, and Greens – which emerged as the winner of the snap parliamentary election called by Macron earlier this year.

The coalition fell short of an outright majority, forcing Macron to enter negotiations to appoint a new prime minister and form a government.

On Monday, the French leader rejected the NFP’s candidate, Lucie Castets – a civil servant who is not a member of any political party – arguing that such a government would threaten “institutional stability.”

Meanwhile, French media have noted that it would be hard to find a new PM “who would not be immediately ousted in a confidence vote.”

Macron called the snap vote in June after his centrist Ensemble bloc’s poor showing at the European Parliament election. After the first round saw Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally (RN) in the lead, Macron reached a last-minute “strategic voting” deal with the NFP to prevent the RN from securing majority in the National Assembly.

Despite Macron’s bloc coming second in the election, the president has the sole power to name the prime minister, who is not formally required to be a candidate from the winning party.

The RN, which came third in the National Assembly vote, has stated that it will block any candidate from the left-wing alliance, arguing that the NFP represents “a danger to public order, civil peace, and obviously to the economic life of the country.”