PRESIDENT Emmanuel Macron was poised to formally accept Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s resignation today — while leaving him in charge of a caretaker government.

Mr Attal offered his resignation last week after the pro-Macron Ensemble (“Together”) bloc he leads won fewer seats than the left-wing New Popular Front (NPF), and fewer votes than either it or the far-right National Rally. 

No bloc has a parliamentary majority, a situation Mr Macron has exploited to avoid asking the largest one — the NPF — to try to form a government, which would be the usual procedure. 

The president is demanding a group be cobbled together of 289 deputies (required for a majority) from “Republican political forces” before he asks anyone to form a government.

Mr Macron’s allies say the designation “Republican” — which the president himself elaborated meant broadly in favour of the status quo, particularly as regards foreign policy, in a letter published last week in multiple French newspapers — excludes both the National Rally and the socialist France Unbowed party of Jean-Luc Melenchon. Yet the latter is the largest single component of the NPF, which came first in the election.

Mr Macron’s gambit appears to be a bid to split the NPF, drawing its right wing into an alliance with the centrist rump to allow his discredited government to continue with policies the electorate overwhelmingly rejected. The weak link in the left-wing bloc is the Socialist Party, which France Unbowed accuses of “sabotaging” internal talks on who should be its prime ministerial candidate.

French trade unions have called demonstrations for tomorrow when the National Assembly convenes, to demand the president respect the election result.