France's Macron to convene party leaders to break deadlock

French President Emmanuel Macron will next week convene party leaders for consultations, his office said Friday, in a bid to break political deadlock and form a government following snap elections. Weeks after legislative elections which produced a lower-house National Assembly with no clear majority, France still does not have a new prime minister.

The left-wing New Popular Front, which emerged as the largest faction post-election, has said it wants the economist Lucie Castets, 37, to be the new premier. Macron had in late July already dismissed the left-wing alliance's push to name a new prime minister. But the left-wing bloc said on X on Friday, will keep pushing at the meeting next week for Castets to be appointed Prime Minister.