Poll-Outgoing PM Attal Favoured By Voters, NFP's Castets Scores Poorly

France's Challenges magazine has commissioned a Harris Interactive opinion poll examining public preferences towards potential next prime ministers. President Emmanuel Macron is gathering parliamentary party group leaders for talks on how to agree on a new PM and gov't on Friday 23 August. However, there is still little indication of how an agreement can be reached between the bitterly opposed political camps.

• The poll asked respondents about their preferences on 35 potential PMs from all political backgrounds. The individual topping the poll, with 40% approval, is current caretaker PM Gabriel Attal. His approval rating is also the most consistent, drawing 81% support from Macron backers, 76% from centre-right Les Republicains, 49% by Greens, 44% among centre-left Socialist Party (PS) supporters, and even 21.5% from right-wing nationalist Rassemblement National (RN) backers.
• In second place was RN leader Jordan Bardella (39% approval), while centre-right Hauts-de-France president Xavier Bertrand came in third place with 32% approval. As Challenges reports, "The regional president could be the best receptacle for the alliance between LR and Macronists, which emerged in July on the occasion of the election of the president of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet ."
• The chosen PM candidate of the leftist New Popular Front (NFP), the largest bloc in the National Assembly, is Parisien senior civil servant Lucie Castets. However, despite a summer of public events intended to boost her public profile, her approval stands at just 17%, putting her in 21st position in the poll.