PARIS (Reuters) -All party leaders in the French parliament agree on the need to avoid political gridlock and must now learn to compromise, President Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address on Wednesday.
In his first comments since his centrist camp lost its absolute majority in an election on Sunday, Macron said agreements needed to be found across party lines and that he would seek over the next weeks to establish a working majority.
Macron had enjoyed full control over parliament during his first term from 2017. But voters who re-elected him as president in April delivered a hung parliament on Sunday, angry over rising inflation and his perceived indifference. [L1N2Y91E4]
“I cannot ignore the fractures, the deep divisions that run through our country and are reflected in the composition of the new (National) Assembly,” Macron said.
“We will have to clarify in the course of the next few days how much responsibility and cooperation the different formations in the National Assembly are prepared to accept.”
He added that, while he would spend the next two days at a European Union summit, it was up to the political party leaders to say “how far they are prepared to go”.
(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Catherine Evans)
