France's President Emmanuel Macron will not appoint a new Prime Minister, and thereby not a new government, until the Olympic Games are over.
We must of course focus on the Olympics now until mid-August, said the President to TV channel France 2 on Tuesday evening.
The statement made representatives of the left-wing alliance New People's Front (NFP) see red.
The party leader of the radical left party Unsubmissive France - the largest party in the alliance - Jean-Luc Mélenchon believes that the President is using the Olympics as an excuse to hold on to power.
"He (Macron) refuses to acknowledge the election result", he writes on the platform X.
New People's Front won the most votes in the parliamentary election but has far from a majority of its own. The fragmented coalition has had difficulty uniting behind a candidate for the Prime Minister post. On Tuesday, after many twists and turns, Lucie Castets, a nearly unknown economist who previously worked at the Finance Department, was appointed.
Since no block gained a majority in the parliamentary election, it will be difficult for a Prime Minister to appoint a government that is approved by Parliament.
The question is which majority can be created in Parliament so that a French government can adopt new reforms and a budget and move the country forward, said Macron in the interview seen by 6.3 million French people.
The parties must come out of their comfort zones and start compromising, he said.