French president accepts prime minister's resignation but keeps him as head of caretaker government

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron accepted the prime minister’s resignation Tuesday but kept him on as head of a caretaker government, as France prepares to host the Paris Olympics at the end of the month.

The president's office said in a statement that Macron “accepted” the resignation of Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and other ministers on Tuesday. Attal and other government members are “to handle current affairs until a new government is being appointed,” the statement said.

There is no firm timeline for when Macron must name a new prime minister, following parliamentary elections this month that left the National Assembly with no dominant political bloc in power for the first time in France's modern Republic.

The caretaker government led by Attal will focus only on handling day-to-day affairs.

“For this period to end as quickly as possible, it is up to all Republican forces to work together" around “projects and actions that serve the French people,” the president's statement said.

The opening session of the National Assembly, France’s powerful lower house of parliament, is scheduled for Thursday.

Normally, members of government are barred from being lawmakers, but Tuesday's move allows Attal to take up his seat as a lawmaker and lead the group of Macron’s centrist allies in the National Assembly. It also insulates him from a no-confidence vote, because he already has resigned and a caretaker government cannot be subject to such a vote.

France has been on the brink of government paralysis since elections for the National Assembly earlier this month resulted in a split among three major political groupings: the New Popular Front leftist coalition, Macron’s centrist allies and the far-right National Rally of Marine Le Pen.

The New Popular Front won the most seats but fell well short of the outright majority needed to govern on its own.

The leftist coalition's three main parties, the hard-left France Unbowed, the Socialists and the Greens, have urged the president to turn to them to form the new government, yet their internal talks have turned into a harsh dispute over whom to choose as prime minister.

France Unbowed suspended the talks on Monday, accusing the Socialists of sabotaging candidacies they have put forward to replace Attal.

Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure said Tuesday the leftist coalition needs "to think, talk and resume discussions” if it wants to meet “the expectation of the public” and fulfill its promise that it “is ready to govern.”

Faure acknowledged that lengthy discussions, public bickering and occasional angry verbal exchanges among the coalition's party leaders are “not a good look.” But “the stakes are so high that it’s not unusual for us to talk for a long time and that sometimes, we yell,” Faure said on France Inter radio.

National Rally vice president Sebastien Chenu said the quarreling on the left is a sign that the New Popular Front “is not ready to govern.”

He also lashed out at Macron on Tuesday, saying the retention of Attal at the helm of government following two recent elections — for the European Parliament and the National Assembly -- was “a denial of democracy.”

Keeping him on to manage “current affairs” amounts to “failing” the French people, Chenu said in an interview with Europe 1 and CNews broadcasters.

“We cannot make something new out of something old,” Chenu said. “Attal must pack his bags, he and all his ministers.”

Politicians from the three main groups are also waging a battle over the presidency and key committees in the National Assembly, France’s influential lower house of parliament.

Manuel Bompard, a lawmaker of the France Unbowed said he supported the idea of blocking lawmakers from Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally from holding leading positions in the parliament’s committees, such as finance, defense and others.

Despite Le Pen’s party finishing third in the elections, behind Macron’s group of centrists and the leftist alliance, Bompard said in an interview with France 2 TV that there is “no reason for us to help them access positions of responsibility.”

Le Pen, a leading figure in the French far right and a National Rally lawmaker, insisted that “all political forces must participate in the functioning” of the parliament.

“The people have spoken. There are 577 lawmakers who represent them,” Le Pen said in a post on X. “Even if I am the last one to defend democracy, I insist that the Macronists, the New Popular Front, the National Rally and Eric Ciotti (a National Rally ally) must be represented in the legislative body,” she added.

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Surk reported from Nice, France.

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