France's newly elected National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, meets on Thursday for the first time. The country is still struggling to form a government after snap elections failed to produce a majority, but MPs are on a deadline to fill key parliamentary posts.
As required by France's constitution, the new parliament will hold its opening session on the second Thursday after elections concluded – which falls in this case on 18 July.
The incoming assembly will be formally opened in a session presided over by its oldest member, 81-year-old José Gonzalez of the National Rally party, assisted by the six youngest MPs.
But tradition aside, the first session is far from a formality.
It will see lawmakers elect the president of the assembly, the equivalent of a speaker of the house, who is charged with setting the agenda and running debates.
An important role in any parliament, it's especially so now – when the house is divided, a caretaker government is in charge and President Emmanuel Macron stands weakened.
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Open race
The vote to choose a speaker is "the first occasion to put the unity – or otherwise – of the various political groups to a full-scale test", says political consultant Bernard Sananès, head of Elabe polling institute.
It will measure the balance of power between the four main blocs that emerged from the snap elections: the left-wing New Popular Front, Macron's centrist alliance Ensemble, the far-right National Rally and the right-wing Republicans. No camp has enough seats for a majority.
Yet would-be speakers must be backed by an outright majority of MPs in the first two rounds of a secret ballot – failing which, the winner is whoever gets the most votes in a third round.
No front-runners have yet emerged to fill the post, which until now was occupied by Yaël Braun-Pivet of the president's centrist coalition.
She is expected to stand to keep the post, but with Macron's camp now only the second-largest bloc in the new parliament, she's far from guaranteed the votes.
While the New Popular Front, the broad left-wing alliance that won the most seats in this month's polls, has signalled it plans to put forward a single candidate, so far its various factions have failed to agree on a name.
That's largely due to disagreements between hard-left France Unbowed, the largest party in the bloc, and the centre-left Socialist Party, its second-biggest faction.
"We'll see whether they agree on a joint candidate, which has been floated but hasn't materialised so far," Sananès told RFI.
"Everyone will be counting their troops and things may look a bit clearer, let's hope, by the end of the week."
Other top jobs up for grabs
The speaker's chair isn't the only one waiting to be filled.
The president of the assembly shares leadership duties with six vice-presidents, 12 secretaries and three financial administrators, all of whom are due to be selected on 19 July.
Each parliamentary group is entitled to propose candidates for the various roles, as well as for the chairs of eight standing parliamentary committees ranging from finance to foreign affairs, defence to culture.
Those posts will be filled on 20 July, and a battle is already taking shape over which groups will claim the plum roles.
Leaders on the left have called for the far right to be denied any positions of power within parliament, while some centrists say they'll seek to block candidates from either the National Rally or France Unbowed.
That's at odds with convention, by which the leadership of the National Assembly is typically drawn from a mix of parliamentary groups.
The first vice-presidency and at least one financial administrator job traditionally go to members of the opposition, while rules expressly require that the opposition chairs the finance committee. Seats on the committees, meanwhile, are divided proportionally between groups.
With more than 140 seats, the National Rally heads the third-biggest group in the assembly and has already said it wants the top job on the finance committee.
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Leadership limbo
The tussle to fill parliamentary positions is set to crystallise the various allegiances that could end up determining who forms France's next government.
The choice of a new prime minister lies with President Macron, who has indicated he wants to resolve the uncertainty as soon as possible.
With the Paris Olympics starting in little over a week, however, others say it's not the time to rush into a handover.
The constitution requires parliament to sit for 15 days, taking the first session up to 2 August. After that it is not due to meet again until the beginning of October, raising the possibility that France could remain in limbo throughout the summer.
"The French public isn't used to waiting so long to get a government," says pollster Sananès.
"Their votes sent a message that there are urgent matters to deal with, things they're angry about. And so if we were to find ourselves not naming a government until the end of the summer as some suggest, even if you can understand it given the Olympics, French people may get increasingly impatient."
