FILE PHOTO: French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a ceremony to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the village Bormes-les-Mimosas, France, August 17, 2024. REUTERS/Manon Cruz/Pool/File Photo
PARIS/TOURS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron meets with party leaders from the left, center and right on Friday with the aim, nearly seven weeks after inconclusive parliamentary elections, to finally give the country a new prime minister.
Whoever Macron names will face a tough job, with parliamentary approval of the 2025 budget one of many challenges at a time when France is under pressure from the European Commission and bond markets to reduce its deficit.
Who will become prime minister - and whether they can get a hung parliament to back any reforms - is still very much an open question.
Macron's gamble to call the snap parliamentary election backfired, with his centrist coalition losing dozens of seats in the June 30 and July 7 ballot, which delivered a hung parliament.
Outgoing Prime Minister Gabriel Attal's government steered France through the Paris Olympics in a caretaker role. But the break is over, and Macron will appoint a prime minister after these talks, which will continue on Monday, his office said.
Macron has so far ignored the candidate agreed on by the left-wing's alliance, the New Popular Front (NFP), which topped the vote, pointing out that, despite being first, they are far from an absolute majority in parliament.
Instead, he has called for leaders to strike deals beyond party lines to form a government that would have a solid majority.
"Faced with this parliament of minority (parties), there is a need for political leaders to get along with each other," an official in Macron's Elysee office said. The election "forces everyone to change tack and enter into a coalition logic."
The NFP wants its candidate Lucie Castets, a 37-year-old senior civil servant, to be named prime minister.
"We'll remind the president of his obligation to respect the French's choice," Castets told a rally in the western France city of Tours late on Thursday.
"We won those elections, whether Emmanuel Macron likes it or not," Greens leader Marine Tondelier told the same rally.
Communist party leader Fabien Roussel, whose party also belongs to the NFP alliance, said on Friday that not appointing Castets would trigger a severe crisis.
But Castet's chances of getting the job are slim. A source close to Macron told Reuters earlier this month that the president believes the centre of gravity of the new parliament is in the centre or the centre-right.
Other possible candidates include a conservative regional president, Xavier Bertrand and former Socialist Prime Minister Bernard Cazeveuve, sources said. French media recently mentioned Karim Bouamrane, the Socialist mayor of an impoverished Paris suburb, as another possible name.
Macron has a history of coming up with unexpected prime ministers. The French Constitution says he is free to name who he wants - however they need to be able to survive no confidence votes from the opposition.
(Reporting by Ingrid Melander in Tours and Elizabeth Pineau in Paris; additional reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Michael Perry)
