French President Emmanuel Macron was Friday to begin a round of thorny consultations with political leaders, hoping to cobble together a viable ruling coalition after last month's inconclusive election.
A full six weeks after a snap election in which Macron lost his parliamentary majority, he has still not named a new prime minister, whose first major task will be to submit next year's budget plan to the National Assembly.
The left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) -- which emerged as the largest faction post-election -- has said it wants the economist Lucie Castets to be the new premier.
But Macron's forces have shown little interest in the idea, preferring a potential alliance with the traditional right.
Castets will be the first political figure to meet with Macron at the Elysee palace on Friday, accompanied by other NFP representatives.
"We're not going to negotiate with him," said Manuel Bompard, coordinator of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party of the upcoming meeting with Macron.
"We'll tell him that there is no alternative to Lucie Castets's appointment."
But allies of Macron -- who said after the election that "nobody won" -- have argued that the leftist bloc is too weak to claim the prime minister's post, and are hoping instead to form a majority around a centrist figure.
The current period is the longest France has ever been without a leader of government following a legislative election, after Macron said he would not prioritise the task of finding one during the Paris Olympic Games, which ended on August 11.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has been running a caretaker government.
Opposition figures have sharply criticised Macron for taking so much time, with Green Party senator Yannick Jadot calling the president's stance "a denial of democracy".
Even some of Macron's own allies have become impatient.
An official in his office insisted Thursday that "the president is on the side of the French people, the guarantor of the institutions".
The Elysee talks -- scheduled for Friday and Monday -- include representatives from across the political spectrum.
Macron's office did not give an indication when the president might make his choice for prime minister, but observers expect him to do so sometime next week.
Whoever is appointed must be able to survive a confidence motion in parliament and present a 2025 budget draft law to parliament by October 1, the legal deadline.
