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President Emmanuel Macron has chosen to keep prime minister Élisabeth Borne in her post, eschewing the idea of a government reshuffle as a way to recover from a string of crises.
“To ensure stability and in-depth work, the president has decided to maintain the prime minister,” said an official in the Elysée palace on Monday night.
France has been through a tumultuous period since January that was marked by months of strikes and protests against Macron’s unpopular plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. After his government rammed the reform through parliament in mid-April, Macron promised “a hundred days of calm, unity, ambition and action in service of France” to try to recover from the tension.
At the time, he also tasked Borne with trying to find new allies in parliament where his centrist alliance lost its majority last year, making it harder for Macron to enact his policy agenda.
Borne’s handling of the pensions battle had fuelled calls among some political opponents and even some government insiders for a reshuffle. As he considered his options, Macron also sought to repair his low popularity ratings by visiting factories, promising more action to cut unemployment, and pledging new funding to improve schools and housing in Marseille, France’s second-largest city.
But just as the symbolic 100-day period was drawing to a close, unrest erupted again in late June when a 17-year-old driver was shot dead by police in a Paris suburb at a traffic stop. Given that the teenager, Nahel Merzouk, was of north African descent, the incident reignited tensions between young people from minority backgrounds living in low-income areas and the police, leading to almost a week of riots and looting.
The government managed to restore calm with the mass deployment of police and by handing down strict penalties to rioters in rapid trials.
Macron has kept a relatively low profile domestically since the unrest subsided, including skipping the traditional July 14 Bastille Day interview or speech, as rumours of a government reshuffle resurfaced.
By sticking with Borne, Macron has opted for continuity, in part because there was no clear candidate to replace her and also because efforts to win over new allies in parliament, such as the conservative Les Républicains, did not pan out.
“The president plans to prepare for the autumn by setting out a clear direction and unifying strongly after this period,” the Elysée official said, promising that Macron would explain more to the country “by the end of the week”.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, whose party is the biggest single opposition bloc in parliament, criticised the decision to keep Borne on. Calling Macron “dramatically disconnected” from the people, she said the president “condemns the country to impotence and immobility”.
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