French left fights over PM role, with current government set to resign

France’s left-wing parties fought bitterly on Tuesday over who to put forward as prime minister, leading Communist party leader Fabien Roussel to warn they were risking a “shipwreck” despite their election success.

President Emmanuel Macron was likely to accept the resignation of his current government, led by centrist Gabriel Attal, to enable ministers who were elected as lawmakers to sit in parliament when it convenes on Thursday.

The New Popular Front (NFP), an alliance ranging from socialists and Greens to the communist party and the hard-left France Unbowed, was hastily assembled before the June 30 and July 7 snap election and unexpectedly topped the vote.

But it did not win an absolute majority, and years of tensions between the parties have resurfaced over who could run a possible left-wing government.

Complicating matters in the euro zone’s second biggest economy, President Emmanuel Macron has called on mainstream parties to forge an alliance to form a government, an option that would include some of the NFP but exclude France Unbowed.

“If we don’t manage to find a solution in the hours, the days, to come, it would be a shipwreck,” Roussel told BFM TV, describing the state of talks as “deplorable.”

NFP parties, which beat Macron’s centrists and Marine Le Pen’s far-right in the snap election, have each put forward a number of names to run the government, only to see them shot down by at least one other member of the alliance.

Attal submitted his resignation to Macron just after losing the election. Macron initially rejected his resignation, but will chair a cabinet meeting at 11:30 a.m. (0930 GMT) at which he could accept it.

This would allow Attal and other members of the government, including Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, to sit in parliament and take part in the election of the parliament’s president on Thursday.

The government would stay in place in a caretaker capacity until a new cabinet is appointed.

It would be able to run current affairs and emergency situations but not submit new laws to parliament – not even the annual budget – or make any major changes, experts say.

Running current affairs would include making sure that the Olympics, that start on July 26, run smoothly.

There have been caretaker governments before in France, but none has ever stayed on for more than a few days.