Yet he had little chance to savour the moment or prepare for the legislative session that begins on June 27th. His government faced days of awkward scrutiny as four ministers quit. On June 19th Richard Ferrand, an LRM minister close to Mr Macron who has been caught up in a financial scandal, stepped down. (He will become the party’s leader in parliament.) Over the following days three ministers from MoDem, a centrist ally, also resigned. Investigators are looking into whether they misused European parliamentary funds.

The loss of Sylvie Goulard as defence minister is a blow. She had proved capable in her brief stint. In contrast, the exit of the sometimes hot-headed François Bayrou (pictured left), the justice minister and leader of MoDem, might prove a relief. This month he harangued a radio journalist, provoking the prime minister, Edouard Philippe, to tell him to be more ministerial. Mr Bayrou, who was leading the government’s push to clean up politics by setting stricter rules on the use of public money, was under pressure to prove himself above suspicion. He remains a political force: his 42 deputies will support Mr Macron, who owes Mr Bayrou for his early endorsement in the presidential campaign.

Still, the resignations have raised doubts about the new administration’s competence. It looked clumsy, for example, when Mr Philippe implied that Mr Bayrou would stay in office, just hours before news broke that he was going. On June 21st Mr Macron reshuffled his cabinet, taking care to preserve the balance between left- and right-leaning ministers. That is essential for a president whose popularity is not particularly high and could slide if he veers in either direction, says Laurent Bouvet, a political scientist at Versailles University.

The centre-right Republicans and their allies will form the main opposition, with 136 deputies, far fewer than they had expected early in the campaign. Worse for them, they are split over how to handle a government containing many of their former colleagues: the prime minister, Mr Philippe, finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, and budget minister, Gérald Darmanin, all hail from the Republicans. Ideological lines may be hard to maintain, too. The Republicans favour much of Mr Macron’s programme, which includes labour and pension reform, tax cuts and a reduced role for the state in some areas.

On June 21st Thierry Solère, a Republican, announced that a splinter group of some 40 MPs from various centre-right parties would offer “constructive” support for Mr Macron’s reforms. That leaves the Republican rump more isolated. Its only consolation is that the former incumbent, the Socialist Party, is even more downcast. The Socialists and their allies have only 45 deputies, their worst result in modern history. Their departing leader, Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, who lost his own seat, says the “collapse of the Socialist Party is beyond doubt”.

The noisiest opposition to Mr Macron’s administration may come from the extremes. Marine Le Pen, whose hard-right National Front has eight deputies, won her race in a former coal-mining region in northern France. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose far-left Unsubmissive France party won 17 seats, was elected in Marseille. Neither politician had been an MP before; both arrived in parliament this week to much media attention, and both will use their seats as a platform to rouse protests against Mr Macron’s reforms.

Mr Mélenchon claimed this week that the historically low turnout in the legislative vote constituted a “civic general strike” against Mr Macron. Few French would agree. Turnout was indeed low at 43%, with the young, the poor and the working-class least likely to take part. But since the early 2000s, when the electoral calendar shifted to holding legislative polls shortly after presidential ones, declining turnout has been the norm. Many voters assumed victory for LRM was a done deal. Despite Mr Macron’s troubles this week, this aura of inevitability has not dissipated. The balance of power in parliament gives him the means to push ahead.