LEFT lawmakers in France today slammed the decision by the country’s president not to appoint a new prime minister until after the Olympic Games.

President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday he will maintain the caretaker government, led by his business-centred coalition, through the Olympics to avoid “disorder.”

Mr Macron brushed aside a prime minister nomination by the left-wing New Popular Front (NPF), which won most seats at this month’s National Assembly elections.

The NPF nominated Paris-based civil servant Lucie Castets as its choice for prime minister.

Ms Castets said: “I am ready, we are ready, I ask the president of the republic to take his responsibilities and appoint me prime minister.”

“The programme of the NPF is our basis. Then, it will be a matter of convincing the assembly to have its measures adopted.” 

But soon after the nomination, President Macron made the announcement during a TV interview.

He told the France 2 network that the current government, which resigned last week to take on a purely caretaker role, would “handle current affairs during the Olympics,” which are being staged in Paris and elsewhere in France through August 11.

Mr Macron said: “I have chosen stability” to safeguard the Games.

But the leader of the left-wing France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Melenchon, said: “The president refuses the result of the election and wants to forcefully impose his new Republican Front on us and force us to renounce our programme to form an alliance with him.”

He added: “There is no question. Respect the vote of the French. He must submit or resign!”

Secretary-general of the Greens Marine Tondelier told the president “to get out of denial.”

Sebastien Chenu, a lawmaker and vice-president of the far-right National Rally, criticised the selection of Ms Castets, a senior civil servant of considerable experience, as “a joke in bad taste.”