Macron’s state of denial

Crisis? What crisis?

Emmanuel Macron emerged from his bunker tonight to speak to France for the first time since his party’s humiliation in Sunday’s legislative elections. In an eight minute television address – the briefest I can recall from the usually loquacious president – he had absolutely nothing substantive to say.

There was not an ounce of contrition. Indeed he claimed that his portmanteau party Renaissance, née La République En Marche, had actually won the election by remaining the largest group in the Assembly. This is despite losing 150 of his deputies and his presidential majority. But there were plenty of bromides and temporisation. He said the situation would be clarified in coming days:

‘We must compromise…we must govern differently,’ he declared. ‘I hear and am determined to take charge of the desire for change that the country has clearly expressed because it is my role as the guarantor of our institutions.’

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But there was nothing concrete.