Macron may bank on Lagarde to be his prime minister

Emmanuel Macron’s aides are hinting that his next prime minister could be Christine Lagarde, who heads the European Central Bank.

European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris. AFP

Efforts by Emmanuel Macron to unsettle his conservative opponent in the French presidential race have taken a new turn with hints that his next prime minister could be Christine Lagarde, the conservative who heads the European Central Bank.

Signs that Mr Macron is wooing Ms Lagarde, 66, who served as finance minister in president Nicolas Sarkozy’s cabinet more than a decade ago, is further bad news for Valerie Pecresse, the Republicans Party candidate, after a series of defections to the President’s camp.

Mr Macron held a private ceremony at the Elysee Palace last week to present a high state decoration to Ms Lagarde, lavishing praise on her. At the same time Mr Sarkozy urged Mr Macron to consider recruiting the most prominent Frenchwoman on the international stage to lead his government if he were re-elected on April 24.

Mr Sarkozy, 67, is still the dominant figure in the Republicans camp despite his criminal convictions last year, and he made his suggestion known to the media while voicing his scathing views of Ms Pecresse’s flagging campaign and hinting that he could back the 44-year-old President rather than his party’s candidate.

Ms Lagarde’s European Central Bank post has five more years to run and last month, when rumours of a prime ministerial post began circulating, she said she did not plan to leave Frankfurt. “I am not in the habit of giving things up halfway,” she told France Inter radio. “There are other people much more qualified for the job [of prime minister].”

However, aides to Mr Macron said Ms Lagarde was unlikely to refuse an offer to become Mr Macron’s third prime minister from the Republicans camp, after Edouard Philippe and Jean Castex, the incumbent.

Mr Macron would make it known that he aimed to appoint Ms Lagarde only if he faced Ms Pecresse in the second-round run-off, a presidential adviser told France-Info radio.

The situation would be different if she were eliminated in the first round and his opponent were one of the two far-right candidates, Marine Le Pen or Eric Zemmour, the adviser said. Their hard nationalist followers would not appreciate the potential promotion of an internationalist pro-European figure.

Ms Pecresse is about level with Ms Le Pen at about 15 per cent of first-round voting intentions, with Mr Macron at 25 per cent and Mr Zemmour at about 14 per cent. Mr Macron would win re-election against any of them, according to polling, but the most serious threat comes from Ms Pecresse.

The speculation over Ms Lagarde, which is assumed to be orchestrated by the Macron camp, keeps pressure on Ms Pecresse as she struggles to reignite a campaign that has run out of steam after a strong start in December.

The Times