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00:00We can now go across to France 24's Peter O'Brien standing by outside the Élysée Palace.
00:05Peter, good afternoon. The President has turned down the Prime Minister's resignation for now.
00:13That happened fairly quickly this morning when Gabriel Attal turned up at around 11.30 am.
00:19We then heard from the Élysée saying that he would be asked to stay as Prime Minister
00:26for the moment to ensure the stability of the country. That's of course before the Olympic
00:31Games come up and the 14th anniversary celebrations. And in any case, while we've got
00:37this fractured Parliament with no clear absolute majority and no coalition able to put forward a
00:43government that would withstand a vote of no confidence, it was very likely to be Attal
00:51remaining on as a caretaker Prime Minister. Now he's still actually there in the Élysée Palace
00:57behind me, the Prime Minister, along with Interior Minister Gérard Darmanin and a few other big wigs
01:02from the Renaissance Macron's party. They're now defining their strategy over the next nine,
01:07ten days of how they're going to try and coalesce into some sort of coalition with other parties.
01:14Peter, three weeks ago Emmanuel Macron took a very risky gamble when he dissolved Parliament.
01:19Has that risky gamble paid off?
01:24Well, we just heard from an Élysée spokesperson who came outside and talked to the press gathered
01:28around here. And I asked him that very question, you know, what does Macron think about the fact
01:34that some of his own party members, including Gabrielle Attal, during his speech last night,
01:40saying that they had this relative success in the election in spite of Emmanuel Macron's decision to
01:47call the snap election and weren't helped by it at all. The spokesperson told me that this was a
01:52rather pessimistic way to look at it. And actually, he said, let's look at what the French voters have
01:58decided. They voted in favour, he said, of what they're calling an arc républicain. That's this
02:05very French way of putting it, but a kind of representation of pro-democracy, pro-French
02:12republic parties and candidates who've now been elected to the French Assembly. He says that's
02:18what we should be thinking about here. So obviously, but we've still got this divide between
02:22Macron, but probably looking at what's happened here and thinking that was a relative success.
02:27And then a lot of members of his centrist bloc who still think it was a massive risk,
02:31and if it hadn't paid off, we could have had what all of the polls were expecting,
02:35the far right at the gates of power. So the cliche goes.

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