LEFT-WING leaders in France today called for mass protests against the refusal of President Emmanuel Macron to appoint a prime minister from the New Popular Front alliance (NPF).

The NPF, made up of communists, socialists, greens and France Unbowed, won most seats in last month’s national assembly elections, nominated Paris civil servant Lucie Castets to be the country’s next prime minister.

Only the French president has the authority to name a new prime minister from which a government will be constructed.

Mr Macron refused to name a new PM after the poll, saying he would make a decision on the new government after the Paris Olympic Games were completed.

The president appointed Gabriel Attal, from his own neoliberal Ensemble coalition, to continue as caretaker prime minister until a decision was made.

Mr Macron, whose alliance came second in the election, said that he wanted to hold fresh talks with party leaders.

The president seems intent on ensuring that the left-wing France Unbowed party is excluded from any new government.

Mr Macron said: “The Socialist Party, the Greens and the Communists have not yet proposed ways to co-operate with other political forces. It is now up to them to do so.”

But Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure said he refused to be an “accomplice in a parody of democracy.”

Green Party leader Marine Tondelier said: “This election is being stolen from us,” and is refusing to take part in “this circus, this sham consultation.”

France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Melenchon says that the president is mounting a “coup” and has threatened impeachment proceedings against Mr Macron. 

Communist Party national secretary Fabien Roussel called for mass protests against the president “in town centres and in front of prefectures” across the country. 

Ms Castets told French radio today that the president was telling the people of France they had got the vote wrong.

She said: “Democracy means nothing to the president.”