Macron’s appeal brushed off

French parties from left and right brushed off President Emmanuel Macron’s appeal for help to overcome a hung parliament on Thursday, demanding he clarify what compromises he was ready to make to win their backing.

With no clear sign of an early solution to the impasse, his current prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, said in a TV interview that she had not yet decided whether she would submit to a vote of confidence in parliament.

Before heading off to an EU summit in Brussels, Mr Macron late on Wednesday made a TV speech in which he acknowledged that this month’s parliament elections had laid bare “deep divisions” across French society.

Ruling out a government of national unity, he called on rival party leaders either to look at possible coalition options with his centrist alliance or to consider lending support for reforms on a bill-by-bill basis.

But the gambit was widely dismissed as an attempt to rally others to his policies while making few concessions.

“If he sticks to his project, he doesn’t have an absolute majority,” Socialist deputy Valerie Rabault said. “It will be him blocking France, not us.”

Bruno Retailleau, a senator for the Republicans party considered Mr Macron’s best hope of getting his economic reforms through parliament, ruled out any form of coalition saying there was no trust in Mr Macron.

“For us it will be on a case-by-case basis,” he said.

Louis Aliot, vice-president of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally which is now the second-biggest party in parliament, also dismissed the appeal. Farleft leader Jean-Luc Melenchon called Mr Macron’s speech a “ratatouille”, a southern dish made by combining vegetables with lots of olive oil.

Voters delivered what is for France a rare hung parliament, with Mr Macron’s centrist alliance 44 seats short of an absolute majority, and the far right and a broad leftwing alliance that includes the far left battling to be the main opposition force. The conservatives could be kingmakers.

Government spokesperson Olivia Gregoire qualified Mr Macron’s implication that he wanted parties to clarify their stances within 48 hours, saying any further consultations would likely take weeks.

“He has started a dialogue which won’t end after 48 hours,” she told radio.

Speaking later on, Ms Borne repeatedly stated that she was open to dialogue with other parties on Mr Macron’s programme, ranging from pension reform to efforts to shield households from the higher cost of living.

But Ms Borne, whose position as prime minister critics have said is untenable in the current political stalemate, said she had not yet decided to submit herself to a vote of confidence when she is due to set out the government’s plans to parliament on July 5.