French Finance Minister: parliament result is “democratic shock,” but we can govern

PARIS (Reuters) – French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said he felt confident President Emmanuel Macron will be able to govern the country even though his camp lost its absolute majority.

“I am not worried”, Le Maire told broadcaster France 2 when asked about the government’s options for staying in power, but added that should all other camps decide not to cooperate “this would block our capacity to reform and protect the French.”

Le Maire, who has been the euro-zone’s second-biggest economy’s finance minister for five years, admitted many French voters felt “results aren’t coming fast enough”, in particular with regards to purchasing power, the number 1 voter concern according to polls.

The war in Ukraine has curbed food and energy supplies and sent inflation soaring despite caps on fuel and power prices put in place by the government.

Asked on potential new alliances in order to secure power, le Maire said that the four top priorities which would determine to who Macron would now reach out were “labour, security, Europe and climate.”

Having run for a seat in the National Assembly himself in the past, Le Maire this time chose not to stand to re-election in the rural Eure region where the far-right Rassemblement National on Sunday scored wins.

(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Frank Jack Daniel)