Abstract. We establish some characterizations of the weak fixed point property (weak fpp) for noncommutative (and commutative) L 1 spaces and use this for the Fourier algebra A(G) of a locally compact group G. In particular we show that if G is an IN-group, then A(G) has the weak fpp if and only if G is compact. We also show that if G is any locally compact group, then A(G) has the fixed point property (fpp) if and only if G is finite. Furthermore if a nonzero closed ideal of A(G) has the fpp, then G must be discrete.