Macron rejects left-wing alliance's effort to name a prime minister

By Michel Rose and Geert De Clercq

PARIS (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday his outgoing government will remain in place until mid-August while France hosts the Olympic Games, dismissing an effort by a left-wing alliance to name a prime minister.

France's leftist New Popular Front coalition, which won the largest number of seats in parliament in elections this month proposed financial crime specialist Lucie Castets as its candidate for prime minister only an hour before Macron spoke in a TV interview.

But when asked about Castets, who is unknown to the public, Macron told France 2: "This is not the issue. The name is not the issue. The issue is: Which majority can emerge at the (National) Assembly?"

"Until mid-August, we're in no position to change things, because it would create disorder," Macron added.

The Olympic Games in Paris, which run from Friday to Aug. 11, are a major logistics and security challenge for France, with 35 venues and an estimated 10,500 athletes.

France has been in a state of parliamentary deadlock since the election. No party won an outright majority of seats in the lower house of parliament, which is instead fragmented broadly into three blocs.

The leftist coalition has sought to propose a new prime minister to succeed outgoing Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, but has ruled out striking deals with other political forces and does not have enough seats to form a majority government.

According to the French constitution, it is up to the president to name a prime minister, so the leftist coalition has no way to force Macron's hand. Instead, the president urged political parties to work on forming a broader coalition.

Castets is a director of finance and purchasing at Paris city hall. She graduated from France's elite Ecole Nationale d'Administration school for civil servants in 2013, but she has no background in party politics.

The four parties in the leftist NPF - the hard-left France Unbowed, the Socialists, the Greens and the Communists - have been arguing for weeks over who to propose as prime minister.

The outgoing government acts as caretaker, running day-to-day matters without being able to pass new legislation.

(Reporting by Michel Rose and Geert De Clercq; Editing by Alex Richardson and Cynthia Osterman)