Who are the contenders to be French prime minister?

French parties are locked in intense negotiations to form a government after voters last week delivered the most fractured parliament in the country’s postwar history.

President Emmanuel Macron has called for a broad “governing pact” that would exclude the far right and the far left La France Insoumise (LFI).

The Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) bloc, which includes LFI, has so far resisted attempts by Macron’s centrists to peel off its more moderate members. NFP is claiming that it has the right to the premiership after it came first in Sunday’s vote, with 180 seats in the 577-strong assembly. As of Thursday, the NFP parties were still wrangling over their PM candidate.

Macron’s centrist Ensemble alliance is also divided over what strategy to pursue, with some pushing for a deal with conservative politicians.

The French president designates the prime minister, but the constitution does not spell out how, nor set a timetable.

Here are a few contenders for the prime minister job:

Olivier Faure, NFP

Calm and discreet, centre-left Socialist party leader Olivier Faure is easy to underestimate. But the 55-year old has proven a skilled tactician, managing to nurse his once moribund party back to fragile health — and to triple the number of its MPs compared with the 2022 election.

Faure helped forge the NFP alliance just before the snap election Macron called last month. He was also the co-architect of the Nupes coalition with LFI and other leftwing parties in the previous assembly.

Faure would be a safe pair of hands given his decades of experience in local and national politics, and is more moderate that others in the NFP. The leftwing alliance has insisted it will apply its heavy tax-and-spend programme and repeal Macron’s flagship pensions reform, but Faure may prove malleable as prime minister.

“I’m ready to take on this role,” Faure said on Tuesday.

Marine Tondelier, NFP

Leader of the Greens, Marine Tondelier is known for often wearing a jacket in her party colour. She has emerged as a key player in NFP, acting as a bridge between Faure and far-left politicians.

The 37-year old who cut her political teeth in the northern city of Hénin-Beaumont, has stood out with her punchy television appearances and passionate speeches against the far right.

But she has little experience in national government and is not considered a shoo-in for the job. Playing in her favour would be that she does not come from the NFP’s two bigger parties — the LFI and the PS — who frequently squabble and compete.

Tondelier has said there are many people in the NFP who have the “experience and skills” for the job. “There are even women who meet these criteria,” she said, signalling her openness to the role.

Gérald Darmanin, Ensemble

A minister from the start of Macron’s first term in office in 2017, and in charge of the challenging interior portfolio that includes policing for the past four years, 41-year-old Gérald Darmanin has long coveted the PM job.

Born to working-class parents with Algerian and Maltese origins, Darmanin started out with the conservative Les Républicains (LR) and is one of the main right-wing figures in Macron’s camp. Reelected as MP from a northern district, he is known for his law-and-order stance. He has faced down crises including riots last summer over police shooting a 17-year-old of North African descent. 

Darmanin has openly advocated for Macron’s centrist alliance to team up with the LR, and poured cold water on the idea of a leftist NFP government. He recently said he would be the “first to sign” a no-confidence motion in a government that included LFI or the Greens.

François Bayrou, Ensemble

One of Macron’s earliest allies, François Bayrou has championed moderate centrism throughout his decades-long political career. The 73-year old, who is now mayor of Pau in his home region in south-west France, leads the Modem party that is part of the president’s Ensemble alliance.

A classic social democrat, Bayrou has advocated for such policies within the “leftwing” of Macron’s camp, and has sought to counter the president’s gradual shift to the right on issues like security and culture. 

Bayrou’s Modem has shrunk to 33 parliamentary seats from 48 in 2022. But in recent days he has raced to counter figures from the “rightwing” of Macron’s camp, such as Darmanin, who advocate turning to LR to find allies.

Given the ambiguous election result, Bayrou argued recently that it would be a grave mistake to create a government that “served only one half of the country against the other”.

Xavier Bertrand, Les Républicains

Xavier Bertrand, 59, runs the northern Hauts-de-France region and is a former health and labour minister under Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy. He stands out in the LR for advocating for focusing more on the working class with better public services and social spending.  

Bertrand temporarily quit the LR in 2017 when a more conservative rival, Laurent Wauquiez, became party chief, and came back into the fold in 2022 when he unsuccessfully ran for president.

Bertrand has used his powerful regional perch to criticise Macron — opposing his unpopular hike to the retirement age — and has been a fierce opponent of the far-right RN, which is strong in his area.

But Bertrand has acknowledged Macron sounded him out to lead the government in 2017. 

Along with other LR leaders, Bertrand has made an unabashed claim for someone from his party to run the government. “It needs to be headed by someone from the LR so that there can be change in this country,” he said on Tuesday.

A mystery technocrat

Macron has played for time this week by keeping the current government of Prime Minister Gabriel Attal in place as negotiations play out. 

If no government can form Attal could stay on as a caretaker for up to a year until a new snap election can be called. Yet Attal has hinted he wants to leave as early as next week to take up his seat as an MP and lead the parliamentary group for Macron’s Renaissance party.

If Macron is at an impasse, he may select a technocratic government for as long as it can survive a no-confidence vote. It would be a first for modern France.

A technocratic government would have more limited ability to act, so few major reforms should be expected.