Paris (AFP)

"" We do not have the right to rest ": Emmanuel Macron called on Monday evening the parliamentarians of the majority to remain in" unity "and" not to lose anything of the ambition "of 2017, during the" traditional end-of-session drink, according to participants.

Some 200 LREM, MoDem and Agir deputies and senators as well as Prime Minister Jean Castex - who did not speak - attended the meeting organized at the Ministry of Relations with Parliament.

The head of state spoke briefly in a "very calm" atmosphere, according to a deputy.

"We have 600 days ahead of us. (...) I need you. Our agenda is complete. We will need concrete results so that what we are committed to becomes reality", insisted the president, stressing , less than two years from the presidential and legislative elections, that "we will be judged on that".

"The last few months have been trying," he said, recalling the health crisis and the municipal elections, and thanking parliamentarians and the government of Edouard Philippe.

He then spoke of the rest of the five-year term. "This new path is not a change of destination or a renunciation of our original ambitions but the adaptation to a new context, one which justifies wanting to renew the dialogue with social forces, to find the path of the territories", chained the president, still according to reported comments.

He also spoke of the reshuffle, which "always creates frustrations", the day after the appointment of eleven state secretaries including five deputies, after a long suspense.

"We do not have the right to rest. We must in the situation where the country is to straddle these circumstances and look at the country as it is by being faithful to what we are", called the head of the State, quoting Eluard: "we live in the forgetfulness of our metamorphoses".

"I need (...) not to lose anything of this ambition" of 2017, "of the scars that we have been able to acquire over the past four years", he pleaded.

The last meeting of parliamentarians with the head of state dates back to February. The latter had already advocated in full pension reform "unity", without "corporalism".

The work of the Assembly must continue until the end of the week on the bioethics bill.

© 2020 AFP