“When you kick off negotiations, you don’t start by cutting off your finger and offering it on plate, you don’t give in quite so much at the beginning,” said one person familiar with the president’s thinking, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Choppy waters
But while Attal’s move to a top position in parliament gives him a job to look forward to, it’s not exactly a golden retirement.
First, the centrist coalition backing Macron is at risk of blowing up. Darmanin on Friday warned that the Attal’s election would not resolve the “major issues” of “where the party stands” and “how the party works,” in a letter to Renaissance MPs.
Meanwhile, lawmaker Sacha Houlié has announced he would no longer be part of Renaissance, aiming instead to build his own group which could include lawmakers “from the social right to the socialist left.”
Attal will also be at the center of any emerging coalition that includes the centrists, with the risk that he makes a deal with the right, he’ll lose left-leaning MPs. But if he gets involved with the left, he’ll lose his right wing.
Whatever coalition agreements the outgoing prime minister wants to build, he’ll still have to deal with his former mentor Macron, who as president is in charge of appointing the next prime minister.
And once appointed, that person will need all the help he or she can get from parliamentary leaders — not just to pass legislation, but merely to survive in a hung parliament.