There's still no white smoke coming from the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) left-wing alliance on the morning of Saturday, July 13, as the parties look to agree on a name to put forward as their proposed prime minister. Rather, the list of names is getting longer... Since the second round of France's legislative elections, the alliance has been bogged down in endless discussions, unable to agree, giving ammunition to its adversaries on the right and in President Emmanuel Macron's camp. At the heart of the ongoing talks was the arm-wrestling between the Socialists – who want to nominate their leader, Olivier Faure, who they believe is the only figure Macron couldn't be able to refuse – and the radical party La France Insoumise (LFI), which is seeking to put one of its own in the prime minister's office – Jean-Luc Mélenchon in particular – on the grounds that it has the largest of the four left-wing groups in the Assemblée Nationale.

Faure or Mélenchon? On Thursday, the shortlist seemed to have been narrowed down. But only until Friday, when the Communists publicly stated they were officially promoting the candidacy of Huguette Bello, the president of the regional council of La Réunion, a French overseas territory in the Indian Ocean, and a former member of La Réunion's Communist party.

Fabien Roussel, the leader of the Communists, discreetly put her name on the table on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, when talks were getting bogged down and some were starting to bet on their failure. It was 1:30 am when Roussel and the Greens' number one, Marine Tondelier, began to tire of the squabbles between the Socialists and LFI. The Greens – the third largest force in the alliance – did not want to take sides, much to the chagrin of the Socialists, while Roussel had stated his preference for a Socialist nominee. "With Marine, we said stop! If you both block, it'll be neither one nor the other," recounted the Communist leader.

At that point, the two leaders put forward new names: The Greens cited Cécile Duflot, their former party leader who served as housing minister; the Communists mentioned Christophe Robert, the head of the Fondation Abbé Pierre, a charity. And then Bello. Instructions were given not to let anything slip, at least long enough to get in touch with her. Mélenchon, who knows Bello well, was the first to call her, telling her: "Roussel has proposed your name." Bello, who served for 23 years in the Assemblée, then received a phone call from the Communist on Thursday morning.

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