France's Emmanuel Macron asks Gabriel Attal to stay on as prime minister for now

French President Emmanuel Macron has decided to keep Prime Minister Gabriel Attal in office after parliamentary elections in which his party lost its majority to the left in a hung parliament.

"The president has asked Gabriel Attal to remain prime minister for the time being in order to ensure the country's stability," Mr Macron's office said in a statement on Monday.

Mr Attal visited the Élysée Palace on Sunday to submit his resignation to Mr Macron, following French political tradition, but added he was prepared to stay in office longer as a caretaker.

"I will of course do my duties as long as it's needed — it cannot be otherwise on the eve of a date [the Olympics] that is so important for our country," Mr Attal said during his resignation.

Instead, he was asked to remain in power in a caretaker capacity to see out the Games — and reassure the international community and the markets that France still has a government.

Mr Macron's office said that, after the meeting, the president had "thanked him for leading the campaigns" of his centrist alliance for the European and parliamentary elections and asked him to stay.

Political deadlock

France is facing a hung parliament and the prospect of taxing negotiations starting on Monday to form a government, after a surprise left-wing surge blocked Marine Le Pen's quest to bring the far right to power.

The left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) won most seats in Sunday's second-round parliamentary vote, beating both Macron's centrists and Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN).

But no group wields an outright majority and no obvious candidate for prime minister has emerged.

Many in France were overjoyed by the outcome, and cheering crowds gathered in eastern Paris to celebrate Ms Le Pen's defeat.

But with no single group securing a working majority, the outcome heralded a period of political volatility just before the Paris Olympics and raised uncertainty among investors about who would run the eurozone's second largest economy.

"It's not going to be simple, no, it's not going to be easy, and no, it's not going to be comfortable," Green party leader Marine Tondelier told France Inter radio.

The range of possibilities include the NFP forming a minority government or the cobbling together of an unwieldy coalition of parties with almost no common ground.

A fragmented parliament will make it hard for anyone to push through a domestic agenda and is likely to weaken France's role in the European Union and further afield.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin was seen entering the Élysée presidential palace shortly after Mr Attal, suggesting the president was canvassing opinions from his allies about what to do next.

The unprecedented situation is taking shape just as Mr Macron is due to be out of the country for most of the week, taking part in the NATO summit in Washington.

No consensus on left

The NFP, hastily assembled for this election in an attempt to unify the left-wing vote against the far right, has no single leader and did not say before the election who would be its pick for prime minister.

Ms Tondelier, one of a number of NFP figures seen as potential candidates for the post, said on France Inter radio it could be someone from the hard-left France Unbowed party, the Greens or the Socialists, the three largest parties in the alliance.

But there appeared to be no consensus on big questions such as whether the bloc should seek support from other forces such as Macron's centrists.

Socialist leader Olivier Faure said on France Info radio that he expected the parties to agree on a plan this week, but sidestepped a question on whether the NFP would be prepared to negotiate a deal with Macron's centrist camp.

France Unbowed's firebrand leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, one of the most divisive figures in French politics, explicitly ruled out any deal with centrists on Sunday, and on Monday his ally Manuel Bompard sounded uncompromising.

"The president must appoint as prime minister someone from the New Popular Front to implement the NFP's programme, the whole programme and nothing but the programme," he said on France 2 television.

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