The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has confirmed this Tuesday in his position to his prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, who had resigned as a result of the legislative elections on Sunday.
Macron meets at the Elysée with the leaders of the parties represented in the National Assembly to seek a way out of the serious political crisis opened after the coalition that supports the president, Ensemble (Together), clearly lost the absolute majority. The opposition demands that he relieve the head of the Government, who has been in office for just over a month, and choose someone more suitable - and agreed - to navigate the turbulent waters of the coming years.
The resignation of the prime minister is something automatic after an election, a constitutional procedure, but in the case of Borne it acquires a special drama because Macron is obliged to reshape the Executive. Two ministers and a secretary of state who were presenting themselves to the elections did not obtain a seat. The president of the outgoing National Assembly himself, Richard Ferrand, and the head of the parliamentary group and former Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, two figures very close to the president, also failed.
The fact that Borne remains in the post, at least for now, does not guarantee that he will survive long. Everything will depend on whether there is some kind of agreement that allows Macron to have a majority in the Assembly. The preferred partners are Los Republicanos (LR, right). From the outset they have refused to form a coalition or sign a pact. It will be seen if they moderate this attitude and agree to specific agreements. In any case, they could demand that Borne leave -from the center-left sector of macronism- and someone with a more right-wing profile be appointed.
Macron is in a hurry to put the crisis on track because a very intense international agenda awaits him in the coming days. He won't be in Paris for almost a week. He will participate in the European Council in Brussels later this week and then in the G-7 summit in Germany, which will be followed by a UN conference on the oceans in Lisbon.
