Emmanuel Macron asked his prime minister not to step down as he pleaded for calm after chaotic parliamentary election results left the country facing a hung parliament.
Gabriel Attal offered his resignation on Sunday night after parliamentary election results pushed Mr Macron’s party into second place, triggering frantic talks to form a new government.
Mr Macron on Monday said he had turned down the resignation, and asked Mr Attal, 35, to remain in post for now to “ensure the stability of the country” just two weeks ahead of the Paris Olympics.
The New Popular Front, or NFP, which comprises Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s hard-Left France Unbowed (LFI), Communists, Greens and Socialists, came first in Sunday’s snap legislative election, taking 193 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly.
Mr Macron’s centrist Together group came second on 165 seats and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and its allies came third on 143 seats, in a stunning setback for the hard-Right party that polls had predicted to come out in front.
The snap election was called in the wake of the Macron camp’s humiliating defeat to RN in last month’s European parliamentary elections.
Mr Macron insisted it would bring “clarity” over the French electorate’s wishes.
However, it has ended in confusion as the three main blocs fell far short of the 289 seats required for an outright majority, raising the prospect of deadlock until a workable majority can be cobbled together, which could take weeks.
With no single group approaching an absolutely majority, the options include the NFP seeking to form a minority government and support on a bill-by-bill basis (as Mr Macron’s minority government has over the past two years), a broad coalition for the centre-Left and centre-Right, or a government of technocrats.
Flush with its unexpected pole position, the Left-Green alliance announced that it would come up with its own candidate for the next head of government “within the week” to replace Mr Attal.
Mr Mélenchon, whose LFI won the most seats in the alliance (74), on Sunday evening unilaterally called on Mr Macron to “leave or appoint a prime minister” from the NFP, which he implied should come from his party.
He insisted the NFP should then be allowed to instantly start rolling out its soak-the-rich programme that that would boost the minimum wage by14 per cent, cut the retirement age from 64 to 60 and freeze on energy prices and essential goods – if necessary by decree.
His lieutenant Manuel Bompard confirmed the party stance on Monday, saying: “The president must appoint as prime minister someone from the NFP, to implement the NFP’s programme, its whole programme and nothing but its programme.”
But Socialists and Greens are keen to put other names forward for prime minister, pointing out that together they form a larger group than Mr Mélenchon’s.
Socialist Olivier Faure, for his part, hoped that the NFP would be “in a position to present a prime ministerial candidate within the week”. Both he and Marine Tondelier, the Green Party leader, said that the figure should be someone “consensual”, which appeared to rule out the divisive Mr Mélenchon. However, one of his loyalists, Mathilde Manot, said the Leftist firebrand was “absolutely not disqualified” for the post.
Many commentators said it was totally unrealistic for the NFP to think it could impose its radical programme without support from a wider coalition.
“The truth is that the Left cannot hope to govern without compromising, in one way or another, with more centrist forces,” wrote Left-leaning editorialist Laurent Joffrin. “French voters did not give it a mandate to implement its programme, but to prevent the RN from taking power. Let’s not forget that the lion’s share of NFP MPs in the new assembly were elected by voters from another party.”
With Mr Macron due to fly out on Wednesday to a Nato summit in Washington, his camp argued that it was up to the president to appoint the new prime minister from the largest group in parliament that can form a workable majority.
“It is important not for the president, but for the country, to have a majority that can govern and take decisions, that can pass a budget and that can implement public policy,” said an Elysée source.
“Today, no one coming out of the election is able to claim that….The president must find a personality who is capable of emerging from this.”
The Macron camp is seeking a coalition with what it calls a “Republican arc” of centre-ground MPs, excluding LFI and RN.
If negotiations fail, Mr Macron could appoint a non-partisan expert government to manage day-to-day affairs, subject to parliamentary approval
Gérard Larcher, the president of the French senate, said on Monday that Mr Macron “has plunged us into political instability”.
“An electoral cartel of the hard-Right and Left, with no future due to fundamental disagreements, comes in first but cannot claim to govern France with a project that would lead to economic and social disaster,” he warned.
On Monday night, Mr Mélenchon refused to rule himself out as the next French prime minister, despite reservations from his own camp saying: “I’m part of the solution, not part of the problem.”
He insisted that according to French political tradition, it was up to his LFI party to decide.
“Since the country has known situations of cohabitation, the party with the majority chooses a prime minister. I think it’s a wise rule.”
He said a name would be put forward “this week”.