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Macron ally Bayrou hails advances after elections spat

French president-elect Emmanuel Macron's party dismissed a spat with key ally François Bayrou as a "storm in a teacup" after an agreement that the centrist leader hailed as "solid and balanced" over how many members of his Modem party would be standing for parliament in June.

François Bayrou after the emergency executive meeting of Modem on Friday evening
François Bayrou after the emergency executive meeting of Modem on Friday evening AFP
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"Things have calmed down today," Benjamin Griveaux, the spokesman for Macron's rebaptised The Republic on the Move (LREM) party said on Saturday. "Solutions have been found. There were places where there were difficulties but it was a storm in a teacup."

Griveaux was speaking at Paris Quai Branly museum, where LREM candidates were meeting to prepare for June's parliamentary elections and endorse the list of 428 candidates announced on Thursday.

On Friday Bayrou had refused to accept the list, claiming that an agreement that 120 Modem members would feature on it had been broken.

But, after an emergency meeting of his party's executive committee, he declared that "steps forward" had been made.

Several Modem members were added to the list on Thursday evening and President François Hollande's communications director, Gaspard Gantzer, withdrew his candidacy for a constituency in the Breton capital, Rennes, on Friday.Bayrou said he would be replaced by a member of his party, while Ferrand tweeted "Respect" to Gantzer, a Parisian, for "lucidly assessing local hostility".

No LREM-backed candidates have yet been named in 148 constituencies.

Juppé denies deal

Both Macron's supporters and former prime minister Alain Juppé, a member of the mainstream right Republicans party, denied having reached an agreement on the makeup of the interim government the president must name next week.

RTL radio earlier reported they had agreed that Juppé supporter Edouard Philippe, an MP from Normandy, would be prime minister.

Hoping to attract some Republicans into its ranks, LREM has not nominated anyone to stand against several sitting MPs, notably former agriculture minister Bruno Le Maire, angering party heavyweights like National Assembly whip Christian Jacob, who accused themof petty political manoeuvring.

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