Macron to hold talks with French opposition parties

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Emmanuel Macron will hold talks this week with France's main political parties after his coalition failed to secure a majority in the June parliamentary elections.

The aim of the talks, according to a statement released on Monday by the presidency, will be to "build solutions to serve the French" at a time when there is no "alternative majority" to that of Macron's Ensemble alliance.

A presidential official quoted by AFP said the party leaders will be received at the Elysees separately and successively. This appears to indicate that invitations were extended to the parties of the left under Jean-Luc Melenchon and the far-right under Marine Le Pen.

"As guarantor of the institutions, the president of the Republic is determined to act in the interest of the French," said the official. The French president has not yet commented on the results of the elections.

According to pundits, Macron is out to secure a deal with the traditional Republican party, whose leader Christian Jacob was said to have accepted an invitation to attend the talks.

Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of a coalition grouping the French left in the legislative elections, hailed the elections as "above all, the electoral failure of Macronism".

Melenchon told his supporters in Paris "It is a moral failure of the people who are always trying to teach everyone a lesson, who have presented themselves as a dam against the far-right."

He also said his NUPES alliance achieved its main objective of defeating Macron, whom he said was "so arrogant as to twist the arm of the whole country".