France's divided National Assembly votes to keep centrist speaker as political turmoil persists

PARIS (AP) — France’s divided National Assembly on Thursday kept a centrist member of President Emmanuel Macron’s party as speaker after a chaotic early election produced a hung legislature.

Speaker Yaël Braun-Pivet, 53, has been at the head of the National Assembly since 2022 and she retained her post Thursday after three rounds of votes in the lower house of parliament.

She received the support of Macron’s centrist allies and of some conservative lawmakers seeking to prevent her leftist contender from getting the job. Braun-Pivet won 220 votes, while communist lawmaker André Chassaigne got 207.

The parliamentary election earlier this month resulted in a split between three major political blocs: the New Popular Front leftist coalition, Macron’s centrist allies and the far-right National Rally party. None of them won an outright majority.

“We need to get along with each other, to cooperate. We need to be able to seek compromises,” Braun-Pivet told lawmakers in a speech following her election as speaker. “You will always find me by your side to do this, to dialogue with you, to innovate with you, to find that new path that the National Assembly must take.”

Thursday’s opening session of the lower house of parliament came two days after Macron accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and other ministers, but asked them to handle affairs in a caretaker capacity until a new government is appointed, as France prepares to host the Paris Olympics at the end of the month.

Leaders of the New Popular Front on Thursday evening again urged Macron to turn to them to form the new government, insisting they won the most seats in the National Assembly.

Yet the members of the coalition, which includes the hard-left France Unbowed, the Socialists, the Greens and the Communists, are still feuding among themselves over whom to choose as their prime ministerial candidate.

Chassaigne, who was the joint candidate of the New Popular Front, criticized the job of speaker going to Macron's centrists as a vote “stolen by an unnatural alliance."

It “gives us even more strength,” he added.

Chassaigne blamed conservative members of The Republicans party for participating in “tactics that led to not changing anything," describing the move as “giving nausea.”

Speaking from Woodstock, England, where he was attending a summit of leaders from Europe, Macron declined to comment on the French political situation and refused to say when he intends to name a new prime minister.

“I will not answer that question,” he said.

Politicians from the three main blocs and smaller parties had waged a battle for the job of speaker, with each camp seeking to make a show of force in the hope that it would influence Macron's decision.

Unions and left-wing activists staged protests Thursday across the country to “put pressure” on Macron to choose a prime minister who comes from the New Popular Front.

There is no firm timeline for when the president must name a new prime minister.