PARIS — 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.
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal leaves the weekly Cabinet meeting Tuesday in Paris.Aurelien Morissard / AP
“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.
President Emmanuel Macron before a meeting Tuesday with the International Olympic Committee president at the Elysee Presidential Palace.Ludovic Marin / AFP – Getty Images
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,