Macron hosts Le Pen, French party leaders to break impasse
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French President Emmanuel Macron gets a 'slap in the face' that turns him toward the opposition coalition.
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Macron hosts Le Pen and French party leaders to break the impasse.
French President Emmanuel Macron will visit far-right leader Marine Le Pen and other political party leaders on Tuesday to break the impasse of his coalition's inability to secure a parliamentary majority.
The meetings, which will also involve discussions with right-wing, Socialist, and Communist party leaders, are Macron's first attempts to extricate himself from a predicament that threatens to derail his second-term "reform plans".
Macron is scheduled to begin Tuesday's flurry of talks with Christian Jacob, the chairman of the traditional right-wing Republicans (LR), a party on the decline in recent months but which the President may now seek to give him a majority.
Members of the NUPES left-wing alliance, Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure and Communist Party chief Fabien Roussel, will also visit Macron, though hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon is not planned to do so.
Macron allies with rivals
In an unusual meeting, Macron will receive Marine Le Pen, his presidential competitor and head of the far-right National Rally, at 17:30 Paris time (1530 GMT) (RN).
The goal is to "create solutions to serve the French" at a time when there is no "alternative majority" to Macron's ruling alliance, according to a presidential official who requested anonymity.
Representatives of the parliamentary parties will be received separately and sequentially at the Elysee Palace. The outcome of the legislative elections dealt a devastating blow to the President and his "reform plan", threatening a political impasse.
While Macron's Ensemble (Together) alliance is the largest party in the National Assembly following Sunday's elections, it fell dozens of seats short of maintaining the absolute majority it has held for the last five years. Melenchon and Le Pen won significant wins, establishing them as key participants in the upcoming parliament.
Resurgent opposition
The results were seen as a "slap in the face" for Macron by the left-leaning Liberation daily, while the conservative Figaro claimed he was now "fronted with an ungovernable France."
Macron's Together alliance won 245 seats, falling shy of the 289 required for an overall majority, in a low-turnout vote with a 53.77% abstention percentage.
According to Interior Ministry data, NUPES and its allies won 137 seats in the election, making them the strongest opposition group.
However, it looks improbable that the combination of Socialists, Communists, Greens, and France Unbowed will be able to maintain a single cause in the assembly.
Vulnerable premier
Meanwhile, Le Pen's far-right party achieved its best-ever parliamentary victory, becoming the strongest single opposition party with 89 seats, up from eight in the previous house.
A confident Le Pen claimed that her party would demand to chair the National Assembly's vital finance commission, as is normal for the main opposition party.
"The country is not ungovernable, but it's not going to be governed the way Emmanuel Macron wanted," Le Pen told reporters Monday.
Melenchon said he would launch a no-confidence motion against Borne in early July when she is scheduled to lay out her policy priorities for the next five years.
Borne may now be vulnerable as Macron faces a big cabinet reshuffle as a result of the resignations of several of his closest allies.
His health and environment ministers were beaten and had no choice but to resign, as did the house speaker and the head of Macron's parliament group.
Macron's April presidential election triumph, in which he defeated Le Pen and became the first French president to win a second term in nearly two decades, was harmed by the outcome.
What are the possible outcomes?
Macron's choices include attempting to establish a new coalition alliance, implementing legislation based on ad hoc agreements, or even calling new elections.
One possibility is an alliance with the Republicans, who have 61 MPs. However, LR President Jacob has stated that his party aims to "remain in opposition."
Macron had wanted to begin his second term with an ambitious tax-cutting, welfare-reform, and retirement-age increase agenda. All of that is now in doubt.
In a rare piece of good news for the president, Europe Minister Clement Beaune and Public Service Minister Stanislas Guerini, both young cornerstones of his party, won tight parliamentary skirmishes.
