Macron’s shuffle points to parliamentary problems

Bloomberg

French President Emmanuel Macron shuffled his cabinet after losing his outright majority in parliament last month but made few changes, in a sign that he’s failed to convince major opposition figures to join his coalition.
The 44-year-old centrist is keeping Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna in their posts.
Laurence Boone replaces Clement Beaune as delegate minister for Europe. Boone was the OECD’s chief economist. Before that, she was an economic adviser to former Socialist President Francois Hollande during the euro area debt crisis and has worked as an economist at several financial institutions in both Paris and London.
Macron decided to keep Elisabeth Borne, his 61-year-old former labor, ecology and transport minister, as premier. While she’s been criticized by some in his own party for being a technocrat who lacks political clout, she’s been loyal to Macron.
France’s political life has been effectively paralyzed since Macron defeated far-right leader Marine Le Pen in April’s presidential election.
It took him weeks to pick a prime minister and a government, which he was forced to shuffle after disappointing results in last month’s legislative elections.
Macron gave Borne less than two weeks to come up with what he called a “government of action” and to sound out other parties for areas of agreement.
But during meetings with rival party representatives, she didn’t offer any concrete concessions, according to
attendees.
Macron himself had ruled out working with the far-right and the far-left parties, Le Pen’s National Rally and Jean-Luc Melenchon’s France Unbowed, from the start.