As French president Emmanuel Macron attempts to find a new prime minister to replace Michel Barnier, who lost a vote of no confidence on Wednesday, his choices will be guided by whether he can secure approval for his choice from the national assembly, the lower house of the French parliament.
The incoming prime minister would need the support of 288 deputies to survive another no-confidence vote, but could govern on simple majorities for individual bills.
Below we look at the president’s options.
Try again with his current coalition?
A surprising suggestion is that Macron could nominate someone acceptable to his current minority coalition partners, including Les Républicains. This could be Michel Barnier himself, though that seems like an obvious provocation. There are some advantages to this approach – the nominee could be an existing cabinet member and therefore already have security clearance, for example. But it would rely again on the passive acquiescence of Rassemblement National, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally. And that hasn’t been working out so far.
As the chart shows, his current coalition leaves him well short of a majority.