Macron accuses his rivals of fuelling instability as he rejects calls to resign

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has accused rival political parties of fuelling instability in France, as he brushed aside calls by the opposition for him to resign amid France's worst political crisis in decades.

- Angelique Chrisafis

"Many of those who have fuelled division and speculation have not risen to the moment," Macron said of French opposition parties, as he arrived in Egypt yesterday to attend the summit on Gaza.

He said rival "political forces" were "solely responsible for this chaos" after they "instigated the destabilisation" of the prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu.

Lecornu, a Macron ally, held his first meeting with France's new government after he appointed a mix of stalwarts from Macron's centrist grouping, as well as a few faces from the upper ranks of the civil service and civil society. New arrivals included Jean-Pierre Farandou, who headed the state-run railway, SNCF, and is now labour minister.

Laurent Nuñez, who served as a junior minister in the interior ministry during the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protests of 2018 and 2019, was appointed to the key post of interior minister. He had recently served as Paris police chief, where he had been responsible for the policing of last year's Olympic Games.