Shortly after French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu resigned, following less than a month in the job, President Emmanuel Macron was filmed walking by the River Seine in Paris, deep in conversation on his phone, with only his security detail at a discreet distance.
Whom Macron was speaking to and what he was discussing remains unclear. But the image symbolised the political solitude of the president as he faces a dwindling array of options, all of them hazardous.