French Lawmakers Will Vote to Elect New National Assembly President

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French Lawmakers Will Vote to Elect New National Assembly President

French lawmakers started casting their ballots to elect the president of the National Assembly on Thursday, in a vote seen as a test of the power balances between the country’s political forces and as a potential indicator of the direction any new government would take.

The gathering of the Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, was its first since no party gained an absolute majority in the second round of a snap legislative election on July 7. As lawmakers filed past the vase used as a ballot box, it was unclear which political force the new president would emerge from.

At the end of the first round of voting, no candidate had an outright majority, and a second round of voting began. To be elected an absolute majority is needed, unless the voting goes to a third round, when a candidate only needs the most votes to win.

The president of the National Assembly does not have executive powers, but this election could mark the emergence of a majority, even if not an absolute one, that could weigh on President Emmanuel Macron’s choice of the next prime minister.

The left-wing coalition that won the most seats in the election, a jumble of parties spanning from the center left to the far left, has spent most of its time since the election bickering. But it managed, at last, to select a candidate: André Chassaigne, a member of the ********** Party who has been a lawmaker for 22 years. With 200 votes, he led after the first round, but was still well short of an absolute majority.

Other candidates include Yaël Braun-Pivet, the former president of the assembly from Mr. Macron’s party, and Sébastien Chenu, a senior figure in Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally.

Flavien Termet, a lawmaker with the far-right National Rally, stood by the vase where paper ballots were cast, in front of a large tapestry featuring ancient Greek thinkers. As the youngest member of the National Assembly, at the age of 22, he was accorded this honor.

But several lawmakers walked by Mr. Termet without shaking his hand because the National Rally, with its quasi-fascist roots, is still viewed by some as an anti-democratic party. One, François Piquemal from the far-left France Unbowed party, mimicked a game of rock, paper, scissors instead.

The official groupings in Parliament have yet to be officially formed. So lawmakers sat in alphabetical order, creating unusual combinations, including for Ms. Le Pen, who sat by a far-left lawmaker, Antoine Leaument.

Gabriel Attal, the French prime minister, tendered his resignation on Tuesday but will stay on in a caretaker capacity until a new government is formed — which could potentially happen after the Paris Olympics, which start in a week.

There is no deadline for the selection of a new prime minister, whom Mr. Macron alone can appoint. Thursday’s election in the National Assembly will likely play a role in influencing that choice, according to Patrick Weil, a historian at the Sorbonne University in Paris.

“If the candidate supported by the left loses it will give Macron an option to try to create a more right-wing government,” Mr. Weil said on Wednesday. “That’s why tomorrow’s vote is important.”

Since lawmakers have little trust in Mr. Macron to oversee talks, Mr. Weil added, he hoped that the new president of the Assembly could help coordinate discussions between parties and make a coalition work.

The National Assembly that emerged from the snap election is split between three large blocs. The New Popular Front left-wing alliance has about 190 seats, the centrist Renaissance party of Mr. Macron has 150, and the far-right National Rally 142. The remaining seats are divided between smaller parties.

Mr. Macron is under no obligation to choose someone from any group in parliament as prime minister and has offered no indication that he will appoint someone from the left, despite the fact that it is the biggest bloc in the Assembly.

The New Popular Front has, however, claimed the right to propose a name for prime minister. But the two biggest parties in the coalition — the moderate Socialist Party and far-left France Unbowed — have not been able to agree on who that should be.

France Unbowed, the party of firebrand far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, supported the candidacy of Huguette Bello, the president of the regional council of La Réunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean, and a former member of the local ********** Party.

The Socialist Party, the second biggest party in the left-wing coalition, put forward Laurence Tubiana, a veteran climate negotiator. Both parties have refused to back the other’s ideas.

“The French left, we don’t like each other,” said Emmanuel Grégoire, the former deputy mayor of Paris and a newly elected lawmaker with the Socialist Party. “We ****** all the time.”

Mr. Grégoire accused France Unbowed of being “people who shout very loud.”

Lawmakers with France Unbowed, on the other hand, have accused the Socialist Party of lacking the courage to ******* “Macronism,” a mishmash of centrist ideas whose core is simply the personality of the president, and to turn away from less regulated policies.

“We don’t want the Socialist Party to become a central force with a policy of accommodating the system,” said Aurélie Trouvé, a lawmaker with France Unbowed.

For now, though, formal discussions about the eventual prime minister will have to wait until after Thursday’s vote.

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