Macron accepts prime minister’s resignation, but Attal will stay on through Olympics

(CN) — French President Emmanuel Macron accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on Tuesday. At a cabinet meeting — the first since Macron dissolved the government and called for snap elections on June 9 — Macron said he would ask Attal to remain prime minister throughout the Paris Olympics, which start on July 26.

"We must work on the programmatic axes around the preservation of economic achievements, the emphasis on a strong sovereign response and measures in favor of social justice,” Macron reportedly said in the meeting.

The decision to accept the resignation means that Attal will be assuming a “caretaker” role while Macron contemplates who will become the next prime minister. Parties will likely continue scrambling to form new coalitions to build an absolute majority in the National Assembly, the country’s lower chamber of parliament, during this time.

This period of limbo will likely last until Aug. 11, when the Olympics end.

“From the moment he accepts the resignation of the government and prime minister, the prime minister no longer has all of the powers of an ordinary prime minister,” Luc Rouban, a senior research fellow at Sciences Po Paris, told Courthouse News. “He exercises his function to the smallest minimum; he simply takes care of the management of the state services and no longer takes political initiatives, no longer launches reform projects.”

Attal initially offered his resignation on July 8, but Macron rejected it, asking his prime minister to stay on for the stability of the country.

By accepting the resignation, Macron effectively confirmed that he will appoint a new prime minister, who is expected to be someone other than Attal. Since the president called for snap elections, parties across the political spectrum have been haggling about who they’d put forward. While the far-right National Rally was dead set on Jordan Bardella, the protégé of Marine Le Pen, the left has struggled to agree on a candidate.

In an unexpected turn of events, the New Popular Front — the left-wing coalition uniting the Socialists, Greens, Communists and the controversial France Unbowed — won the most votes in the final round of the elections. But now, as the coalition enters into government, old differences among the parties are resurfacing. The coalition can’t agree on a candidate.

A group needs an absolute majority of 289 of the 577 seats in the assembly, the more powerful of France’s two legislative chambers, to avoid political deadlock and pass legislation.

Three big blocs came out on top, but none were close to having the numbers necessary to govern: The New Popular Front won 182 seats, Macron’s centrist Ensemble coalition got 168 seats and the far-right National Rally earned 143, far short of the majority some predicted for the controversial RN party but still besting their previous showing of 89 seats in 2022.

"The first essential point is whether the left will remain united or not," Rouban said.

There’s no clear front-runner for the role. But experts say this decision might be buying Macron time to watch the New Popular Front fall through.

“It’s very likely, in fact, that Macron is waiting for a fracture within the left, and that the whole bloc and the most moderate part of the left — the Socialists, Greens and maybe even part of the Communists — finally rally to the center to form a more or less center-left majority,” Rouban said. “Which could also rally some deputies from the [center-right] to try to form a kind of grand centrist coalition.”

Ironically, Rouban argued, such fractures could allow Macron to keep his party in power, despite his unpopularity and losses in the elections.

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