The French Prime Minister submits her resignation, but Macron rejects it

The French Prime Minister, Elizabeth Bornepresented his resignation this tuesday to Emmanuel Macron, but the president rejected it. After the vote of punishment in the Parliamentary election Sunday, with the loss of the absolute majority of the presidential coalition, Borne is on a tightrope. However, the fact that the Prime Minister submits his resignation after the parliamentary elections is a common procedure in France. he had already done it Edouard Philippe in June 2017. By rejecting his resignation, Macron also did not resolve the doubts about the continuity of Borne, appointed at the end of May as head of the executive.

According to Elysée sources told the newspaper Le Mondethe decision to reject the resignation of the First minister It was due to the desire not to meet an interim government that cannot complete some “important decrees”, such as an increase in the base salary of civil servants, frozen for years, or an improvement in the precarious situation of the emergency services of the hospitals. In short, Macron needs time after Sunday’s crash, which will lead to the resignation of at least three members of the executive, defeated in their constituencies.

Although the legislative elections are designed so that the winning party in the presidential elections, held just two months earlier, achieves a comfortable majority, the Macronist alliance Together suffered a punishing vote and obtained 242 deputies. In other words, it lost more than 100 seats compared to the previous legislature and stayed far from the absolute majority, a minimum of 289 seats. Faced with the rise of the new unitary coalition of the left (around 140 deputies) and the far right (around 90), the Macronist executive will face tough opposition. It is not at all clear how he will push through the laws in a country unaccustomed to parliamentary negotiations. Since 1988 there has not been a National Assembly without an absolute majority.

“We will continue in opposition”

Macron began a round of meetings with leaders of the different opposition parties on Tuesday, which will last until Wednesday. His objective: to seek “constructive solutions” and possible exit doors to the labyrinth in which the centrist leader finds himself. The first to be received at the Elysee was Christian JacobPresident of The Republicans (LR, related to the PP). Despite remaining as the fourth force in Parliament (only 64 deputies), this formation heir to the Gaullist right —immersed in a clear decline at the national level— may have a key role in the new legislature.

However, its leaders are opposed to agreeing with the president and contributing their votes so that he reaches the parliamentary majority. “I have told the president again that we do not consider being part of something that would represent a betrayal of our voters. We campaigned in the opposition and we will continue in the oppositionJacob declared in the courtyard of the Elysium. But “we will not be in the business of blocking institutions,” he added. On the other hand, other members of LR are in favor of this alliance, for example, the former president Nicholas Sarkozy or Mayor Jean-François Copé, who led this party between 2012 and 2014.

Get the country “out of immobility”

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“What interests me is that we get the country out of immobility,” he says in the pages of liberation Catherine Vatrin, former minister of the republican right and whose name sounded strong in May to be appointed as prime minister. In the end, Macron opted for Borne, a former Labor Minister, highly criticized for her gray legislative campaign. To replace this leader with a technocratic profile and linked in the past to the Socialist Party, the names of two of the strong men of the right wing of macronismo sound: the Minister of Economy, Bruno LeMaireor the Interior, Gerald Darmanin.

Beyond this rumour, everything indicates that the changes in the government will take a few days. Macron must participate at the end of this week in the European Council in Brussels and then in the G7 at Schloss Elmau (Germany). This tight international agenda is added to the reputed slowness of the president in the face of these government remodeling.