Emmanuel Macron to reshuffle government after French parliament election win
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe resigned on Monday afternoon.
French President Emmanuel Macron is poised to rearrange his Cabinet after his new centrist party engineered a landslide in the country’s parliamentary election.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe formally resigned on Monday afternoon, a largely symbolic move required after a legislative election.
He was immediately renamed to his job and is in charge of forming a government by Wednesday afternoon, the French presidency said in a statement.
Since Mr Macron’s new party, Republic on the Move!, won an absolute majority in the 577-seat National Assembly, government spokesman Christophe Castaner said on RTL radio the government reshuffle would be “technical and not far-reaching”.
He refused to say whether ministers who have come under suspicion of corruption would keep their jobs.
President Macron’s plans have been slightly delayed by an attempted attack on Monday afternoon on security forces on the Champs-Elysees in Paris.
Interior Minister Gerard Collomb went to the scene and said he will present a bill on Wednesday at a Cabinet meeting to extend France’s state of emergency from July 15, its current expiration date, until November 1.
After President Macron vigorously campaigned on a promise to renew France’s political landscape, other parties also made efforts to promote new faces.
The victorious newcomers started arriving on Monday at the National Assembly to learn their way around before the first parliament session next week.
The National Assembly says new politicians’ average age is down from 55 in the previous term to 49 now.
The youngest is 23, the oldest 79.
The number of female politicians is the highest ever in France’s lower house of parliament, reaching 38.7% — up from 26.8%.
Three-quarters are starting their first term at the National Assembly. Some previously had local political experience, but many are newcomers to politics.
Republic on the Move! and its allies from the Modem party took 350 seats — far more than the 289 needed for a majority, according to the Interior Ministry’s definitive results.
Mr Macron’s government is expected to pass its first set of measures during a special parliamentary session starting on June 27 — laws to strengthen security, improve ethics in politics and reform France’s restrictive employment laws.
