Visiting the Athletes’ Village on Monday, French president Emmanuel Macron spoke of a trêve olympique or ‘Olympic truce’ to the disagreements that have wracked French politics since the inconclusive results of snap elections on July 7th – so what would this involve, and is it likely?

Why would France need a truce?

By way of a quick recap, the parliamentary elections on July 7th ended in an inconclusive split – although the leftist alliance Nouveau Front Populaire took the most seats, but none of the three main blocks in parliament (the left alliance, the centrists or the far-right) got anywhere near enough seats to claim a majority.

Talks to try and form a coalition have stalled and last week France moved officially into a ‘caretaker government‘, which has the power to make decisions in case of an emergency or urgent situation but cannot pass laws or create a legislative agenda.

READ ALSO What does a caretaker government mean for France?

At the same time, the eyes of the world are turning to France as the French capital hosts the biggest sporting event on the planet – the Paris 2024 Olympics officially begin on Friday with the opening ceremony on the River Seine.

What would a truce involve?

This was not an official statement from the president, just an answer to a journalist during his visit to the Athletes’ Village in Saint-Denis on Monday, saying that the Games would be “not at all” spoiled by his decision to call an election, and adding “there is a kind of truce”.

He gave no further details on what he had or mind or how this would work.

At the moment all the parties are trying to find allies to create a group with at least 289 MPs in it – the magic number required for a majority. If/when a group manages to do that, they will be able to nominate a candidate for prime minister to replace Gabriel Attal, who for the moment remains as a caretaker in the role.

Macron himself remains in post as president because in France the parliament and the president are elected separately.

On Monday the Elysée indicated that it would be unlikely that a new PM would be proposed before the Olympics opening ceremony takes place on Friday “unless there is a tremendous acceleration” in the pace of negotiations.

So what is happening?

The main negotiations are taking place behind closed doors, but so far there has been little sign of any progress in public with the factions still hopelessly divided.

The left alliance has so far been unable to agree on a candidate to propose as prime minister and on Monday Laurence Tubiana – a former climate diplomat who some hoped could have been a left unity candidate – announced that she was withdrawing from the race after failing to secure backing.

Some business has been done, however – parliament reconvened last week and MPs voted on the key posts including the speaker, deputy speakers and the heads of various influential committees.

The former speaker, Macron ally Yaël Braun-Pivet, was re-elected – prompting legal challenges from the Nouveau Front Populaire who said it was unfair that the ministers of the ‘caretaker’ government were allowed to vote, since normally ministers do not get a vote on parliamentary roles.

The challenge will be heard by the Constitutional Council, but voting went ahead to appoint the rest of the parliamentary roles with the NFP coming out on top as their MPs took 12 out of the 22 roles on offer, including the leadership of the powerful finance committee. No legal challenges have been filed over these votes (so far).

The big losers were the far-right Rassemblement National which gained none of the influential committee posts after centrist and left-wing groups voted together against RN candidates. RN leader Marine Le Pen denounced “scheming”.

Is a truce likely?

Those watching the increasingly unedifying mess in the parliament might wish that we could have a break and just enjoy watching the Olympics.

However a truce requires everyone to agree to it, and at present there seems to be precious little chance of France’s politicians agreeing on much.

It seems certain that the Games will begin with the caretaker government still in place, but what happens after that is anyone’s guess.

The Olympics run from July 26th to August 11th, there is then a short break then the Paralympics run from August 28th to September 8th.

Trêve traditions

It’s not unheard of for a truce to be called in France to political tensions to accommodate an event – the most common example is a truce called in ongoing strike actions to allow the French people to celebrate big events like Christmas or the summer holidays.

This doesn’t happen every time, but sometimes if there is ongoing strike action, especially on the railways, unions will agree to call a truce so that the French people can spend the holidays with their families.

Political wrangling in France usually dies down in the summer – not because of a truce but because the parliament is in recess and French politicians do what other French people do in July or August; they go on holiday.

There is no recent precedent to calling a truce over something as serious as not having a government, but then this whole situation is unprecedented in the Fifth Republic.

The concept of an ‘Olympic truce’ is much older, going back to roughly 776BC – during the Olympics of antiquity a halt would be called to any wars that were going on at the time so that athletes and spectators could travel to the Games safely.