Macron ally furious after party announces candidates

A row has broken out between French president-elect Emmanuel Macron and one of his key allies, François Bayrou, after Macron's Republic on the Move party's announcement of 428 candidates in June's parliamentary election.

François Bayrou and Emmanuel Macron DR

Republic on the Move on Thursday announced the names of most of the candidates it will be backing in the general election, saying that its decision for the 148 remaining constituencis will be announced by next Wednesday.

A furious Bayrou accused Macron's supporters of failing to honour an agreement with his liberal Modem party made when he backed the former economy minister's presidential bid.

Only 35 Modem candidates feature on the list and Bayrou claims he was promised 120.

Declaring that Macron was "recycling the Socialist Party" of President François Hollande and needs to "change his software", the Modem leader announced that he had called a meeting of his party's executive for Friday night to discuss its response.

The Macron camp tried to play down the dispute on Friday, Republic on the Move spokesman Richard Ferrand saying that there could be places for Modem candidates in the 148 constituencies not yet covered.

But many of those nominations have been left open to allow sitting MPs in the Socialist and Republican parties to come over to Macron's movement and, in any case, may not be in winnable constituencies.

Ten mistakes

The Republic on the Move list also contained 10 mistakes that were corrected on Thursday evening.

One of them, the president of the rugby club in the southern city of Toulon, Mourad Boudjellal, had not in fact been nominated.

Other supposed candidates responded with surprise to the announcement.

"I have neither joined On the Move not asked it to nominate me," Socialist MP François Popponi told france Info radio. "The only nomination I asked for was that of the Socialist Party."

Communist Party national secretary Pierre Laurent mocked the list at a public meeting on Thursday evening, accusing Macron of wanting a parliament packed with his "courtiers".

"Renewal isn't replacing incumbent MPs with their former office directors or economic advisers," he commented, a possible reference to outgoing president François Hollande's communications adviser Gaspard Gantzner, who is to represent Republic on the Move in a Brittany constituency.