FRANCE’S New Popular Front (NPF), which won the most seats in Sunday’s parliamentary election, has called on President Emmanuel Macron to ask it to form a government.

But the president yesterday addressed the nation saying as no bloc had a majority, he intended to keep current Prime Minister Gabriel Attal in place until a compromise coalition had been built up – and even hinting it should not include representatives of the biggest part of the NPF, the left-wing France Unbowed.

The NPF won 180 seats to 159 for Ensemble (“Together”), Mr Macron’s bloc, and outpolled it by over two million votes. The two must co-operate to form a governing majority.