French President Emmanuel Macron has said he will maintain the country's centrist caretaker government until after the Olympic Games ends in mid-August to avoid "disorder."
His announcement in a TV interview on Tuesday came shortly after the leftist coalition that won the most votes in this month's French parliamentary elections selected little-known civil servant Lucie Castets as their choice for prime minister.
Mr Macron said the current caretaker government will "handle current affairs during the Olympics”.
The Olympic Games, which begins on Friday and runs until August 11, is a major logistics and security challenge for France, with 35 venues and an estimated 10,500 athletes taking part.
There is no firm timeline for when Mr Macron must name a new prime minister. The parliamentary elections left the National Assembly with no dominant political bloc in power for the first time in France's modern Republic.
Mr Macron, who has a presidential mandate until 2027, has the ultimate say in who is to be appointed as prime minister. However, the prime minister would need the support of a majority of lawmakers to avoid a no-confidence vote.
When asked about Ms Castets, who is relatively unknown to the public, Mr Macron told France 2 on Tuesday: "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," Mr Macron added.
France has been in a state of parliamentary deadlock since the recent 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.
Ms 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.
