France’s President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday (Jul 16) accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s government, which will now serve only in a caretaker capacity, the presidency said.
French politics have been in gridlock since an inconclusive snap election earlier this month, with parties in the National Assembly scrambling to form a governing coalition and no successor to Attal in sight.
The outgoing premier and his team would “handle day-to-day business until a new government is named”, the Elysee Palace said.
“For this period to come to an end as quickly as possible, it is up to republican forces to work together to build unity,” it added, referring to mainstream political parties but excluding the far right and hard left.
Macron had announced the plan earlier in the day at the government’s first cabinet meeting since his allies got roundly beaten earlier this month in a snap parliamentary election he had called to “clarify” the political landscape.
Macron told the ministers he would ask Attal to stay on “for some weeks”, probably until after the Paris Olympics, which open on Jul 26, meeting participants said.
This gives political parties more time to build a governing coalition after the Jul 7 election runoff left the lower house without an overall majority.
A broad alliance called the New Popular Front (NFP) which includes Socialists, Communists, Greens and the hard-left France Unbowed (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 National Rally (RN) third with 143.
