President Emmanuel Macron will accept the resignation of the French government on Tuesday, July 16, but ask Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to head up a caretaker government for now, cabinet sources told Agence France-Presse. Macron made the announcement at Tuesday's cabinet meeting – the first since his allies got roundly beaten in a snap parliamentary election called to "clarify" the political landscape.
Macron told the ministers that he would accept Attal's resignation "at the end of the day", but ask him to stay on "for some weeks," probably until after the Paris Olympics, which open on July 26, meeting participants said. This gives political parties more time to build a governing coalition after the July 7 election runoff left the lower house without an overall majority.
Following their resignation, Attal and other cabinet members will be able to take their seats in Parliament and participate in any coalition building. The Assemblée Nationale reconvenes on Thursday and will start by filling the chamber's presidency and other key positions.
French politics have been in gridlock since this month's inconclusive snap election with parties in the Assemblée Nationale scrambling to put together a governing coalition, and no successor to Attal in sight.
A broad alliance called the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) which includes Socialists, Communists, Greens and the hard-left La France Insoumise (LFI) won the most seats, with 193 in the 577-strong lower chamber. Macron's allies came second with 164 seats and the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) third with 143.
The divided NFP alliance has been scrambling to come up with a consensus candidate for prime minister. But internal conflicts – notably between LFI and the more moderate Socialists – have thwarted all efforts to find a personality able to survive a confidence vote in parliament.
Over the weekend, the Socialists torpedoed the hopes of Huguette Bello, 73, a former Communist member of Parliament and the president of the regional council in France's overseas territory La Réunion, who had support from the other left-wing parties. LFI, in turn, rejected 73-year-old Laurence Tubiana, an economist and climate specialist without political affiliation, who had the backing of the Socialists, Communists and Green party. Leftist lawmaker François Ruffin on Tuesday called the NFP's infighting "shameful," a day after Green MP Sandrine Rousseau said the disagreements made her "very angry."
On Saturday, Attal was voted in as leader of his party's Assemblée Nationale contingent, as he eyes his own future outside government, saying he would "contribute to the emergence of a majority concerning projects and ideas." Cracks have appeared between Attal and his former mentor Macron, whom the prime minister appears to blame for the electoral defeat only six months after being appointed France's youngest-ever head of government at 34.