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President Emmanuel Macron has said he will not name a new government until after the Olympic Games since it would create “disorder” just as France hosts the world’s most-watched sporting event.
Calling for what he called an “Olympic political truce”, in reference to the historical custom of wars being paused during the Games, Macron said it was important that the current caretaker government and ministers stayed in place since they had been instrumental in planning the event.
“Until mid-August, we are not in a position to change things since it would create disorder,” he said in an interview with France 2 television ahead of the opening ceremony on Friday.
The comments come just over two weeks after the snap elections Macron unexpectedly called led to a hung parliament with no party or alliance anywhere near an outright majority that would give a clear mandate to forming a government.
Macron’s centrist alliance was dealt a major setback in the vote, losing about 80 seats to come in second place behind the leftist alliance Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP).
Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National came in third, and is now the biggest single party in the National Assembly.
Since then, Macron has played for time and left the Eurozone’s second-largest economy in political limbo.
He has argued that “no one won” the election since none of the three blocs were close to the 289 seats needed for an outright majority, and has instead called for a broad “governing pact” to end the political impasse.
Macron has asked politicians stretching from the centre-left Socialists (PS) to the conservative Les Républicains (LR) to team up with his centrists, and tasked caretaker Prime Minister Gabriel Attal with conducting talks with party chiefs.
But they got off to a rocky start when the Socialists rejected the call and insisted that the president must allow the NFP to form a government since the alliance won the most seats, with around 180 MPs.
The LR have proven slightly more amenable, helping Macron re-elect his candidate as president of the National Assembly, but they have refused any government coalition.
In France, the constitution grants the president the right to name the prime minister, and although it does not set out rules for doing so, it has been customary to designate a politician from party with the most MPs.
Leftwing politicians reacted with outrage to Macron’s comments because the NFP had only an hour before the interview finally managed to end their infighting to propose a prime ministerial candidate.
The NFP is made up of four parties and its two biggest ones, the far-left La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) and the more moderate Socialists, have been squabbling over who could lead their government, a spectacle that has laid bare their deep divisions.
After each faction publicly rejected the other’s proposed names in recent weeks, the NFP on Tuesday agreed on putting forward a little-known civil servant named Lucie Castets, who hails from neither the PS or LFI.
She is currently an official in the Paris mayor’s office overseeing finance and procurement, and in the past has called for more public service funding and also spoken out against Macron’s unpopular increase in the retirement age.
Asked if he would offer the left a chance to form a government now that Castets’ name had been put forward, Macron sidestepped the question.
“It is false to say that the NFP has any type of majority,” he said. “The question is not the name. The question is what type of majority can be put together in the assembly so as to have a stable government capable of action.”
Marine Tondelier, the leader of the Greens who are members of the NFP, said Macron “must come out of denial” and admit his centrists had lost the election.
“We won, we have a programme, we have a prime minister,” she said on LCI news channel. “Our voters are now waiting for the implementation of our social justice and environmental justice measures, which they have demanded. The president cannot obstruct like this.”
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