French elections: Far right only party capable of majority, warns PM Attal

Édouard Philippe, who was prime minister for three years at the start of the Macron presidency in 2017, said he would vote for a Communist candidate in the second round.

But he made clear he would not support Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party, after witnessing how it had contributed to political chaos.

“I’d rather have an MP I know and who I can work with… even if we have differences, who I think shares my democratic requirements, rather than the National Rally,” he told TF1 TV.

François Hollande, the former Socialist president who was originally Emmanuel Macron’s boss at the Élysée Palace, said the concerted withdrawals had “minimised” the chances of the far right winning an absolute majority, although it could not be “ruled out”.

Mr Attal chaired a cabinet meeting on Wednesday which may be his last as prime minister.

National Rally boss Marine Le Pen accused him of using the occasion to make a series of new appointments, including police chiefs.

Government spokeswoman Prisca Thevenot hit back, saying that she should read the constitution.

“I think we knew that Madame Le Pen lied, now we know she manipulates information,” she said. Such appointments were nothing new, she said, especially when it came to preparing for the start of the next school year.

Meanwhile, the head of France’s confederation of small and medium enterprises, François Asselin, complained that President Macron’s decision to dissolve parliament had cost France “a quarter of growth” and nobody appeared to have taken the economy into account.

If either the left-wing New Popular Front alliance or National Rally were able to put their economic plans into practice, “the punishments from the markets will be immediate”, he told BFMTV.