Without an overall majority, France was left rudderless at home, where it will host the Olympics in just over two weeks, and weakened abroad, where President Emmanuel Macron.
Macron said in an open letter to voters on Wednesday that “nobody won” the vote.
He kept centrist Prime Minister Gabriel Attal in place and called on the parties to find common ground for a broad coalition.
Socialist Party chief Olivier Faure accused Macron of “disrespecting the vote of the French people”, while LFI puppet Jean-Luc Melenchon blasted “the return of the royal veto”.
Sophie Binet, head of France’s largest trade union federation, the CGT, also attacked the president with an image of France’s long-gone monarchy.
“It’s like Louis XVI locking himself in Versailles,” she said, referring to the king who was guillotined in 1793 during the French Revolution.
“If (Macron) does not respect the results of the polls, he risks throwing the country into chaos again,” she said.
The president’s letter appears to rule out a role for either the LFI – the biggest player in the left-wing New People’s Front (NFP) alliance – or the far-right National Assembly (RN) in the new coalition.
Voters from different camps joined forces in the second round to oust the RN from power in a “republican front”, allowing Macron’s supporters to take second place with 164 seats, leaving the far right in third place with 143.
With each of the three blocs controlling roughly one-third of the lower house, it may be a long shot to find a government able to survive a no-confidence vote.
“We cannot form a government of national unity with only one camp,” Macron’s ally Francois Bayrou told AFP, calling for a prime minister capable of “uniting people”.
The conservative Republican Party – once the vehicle of presidents such as Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, but now reduced to 40 seats – has refused to join a governing coalition but says it could vote to adopt the legislative programme.
Her party is now firmly eyeing France’s next presidential election in 2027, when term limits mean Macron will not be able to run again.
Macron arrived in Washington on Wednesday for a NATO summit, where allies may now be weighing the prospect of French instability over the potential return of NATO-skeptic Donald Trump to the White House.
Macron did not speak to reporters at the event.
Markets are also jittery as credit rating agencies warned this week that uncertainty over the government’s finances could lead to a credit downgrade on its more than three trillion euros ($3.25 trillion) in debt.
Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau warned against the left’s economic agenda on Thursday, without naming the NFP specifically.
“In competition, our small firms, our companies cannot be burdened with excessive labor costs, including the minimum wage, and excessive taxes,” Villeroy told Franceinfo television.
Before the polls, the NFP promised to raise the minimum wage and raise taxes on companies and the wealthy.
The revenue would pay for social projects, including reversing Macron’s widely disapproved increase in the official retirement age.
“We spend much more than we pay in taxes, including social spending and pensions,” Villeroy said.
“This creates a budget deficit,” he added after the government spent 5.5 percent of GDP last year, well above the EU limit of three percent.
