France’s search for PM back to square one as hopeful quits

PARIS: Hopes of France´s left-wing bloc finding a consensus candidate to lead the country´s next government after an inconclusive snap election unravelled on Sunday as the best-placed contender dropped out.

A broad alliance of Socialists, Communists, Greens and the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) holds the largest number of seats in the National Assembly after last week´s election runoff, but with 193 seats in the 577-strong lower chamber they are well short of a majority.

The result, says the leftist bloc -- called New Popular Front (NFP) -- entitles it to pitch their candidate for prime minister to President Emmanuel Macron, whose allies trailed in the vote.

Several days of wrangling within the loose coalition produced little until the emergence of 73-year-old Huguette Bello, a former communist MP and currently the president of the regional council in France´s overseas territory La Reunion, as a possible consensus candidate.

Bello quickly got the backing of LFI, communists and the Greens.

But they could not bring on board the centre-left Socialists, who have continued to back their party boss Olivier Faure for the job. In the face of Socialist resistance, Bello said on Sunday that she would drop out.