Far-right leader Le Pen says France is in a political 'quagmire' 9 days before Olympics start

PARIS (AP) — With nine days to the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen said Wednesday that the deeply divided country is “in a quagmire” after chaotic legislative elections produced a fragmented parliament.

France has been on the brink of government paralysis since elections for the National Assembly earlier this month resulted in a split among three major political groupings: the New Popular Front leftist coalition, President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist allies and Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party.

The New Popular Front won the most seats but fell well short of the majority needed to govern on its own. The leftist coalition’s three main parties, the hard-left France Unbowed, the Socialists and the Greens, have urged the president to turn to them to form the new government. Yet they are feuding over whom to choose as prime minister.

Macron on Tuesday accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and other ministers but asked Attal and other government members to handle affairs in a caretaker capacity until a new government is appointed. There is no firm timeline for when Macron must name a new prime minister, and it’s not yet clear when he will do so.

“We are in the middle of a quagmire,” Le Pen said Wednesday, a day before the new parliament is to meet.

Le Pen, a three-time presidential candidate and a leading far-right figure in France, blamed both Macron and the left for the post-election chaos.

She criticized Macron for failing to explain when he plans to replace Attal.

“The French people do not know what is happening,” Le Pen said in an interview with BFM TV.

The opening session of the 577-member National Assembly, France’s powerful lower house of parliament, is scheduled for Thursday.

The leftist alliance was hastily formed to run in the recent national legislative elections, which were called by Macron after his centrist allies suffered a massive defeat by Le Pen’s National Rally in the June vote to the European Parliament. It was a gamble Macron made seeking to prevent the far right from gaining power.

Leaders of four parties in the leftist alliance are calling on centrist and other left-wing lawmakers to form “a republican dam” in the National Assembly that would prevent Le Pen’s National Rally from getting any leading positions in the parliament.

Voters, they argued in a Wednesday statement, have given them “an extremely clear mandate to firmly oppose the extreme right and its rise.”

Le Pen accuses the left and Macron of anti-democratic behavior by denying her party’s elected lawmakers important positions in the parliament.

The left-wing alliance is doing “enormous harm to democracy,” she said.

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