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Macron is the president and head of state. He’s elected directly by the citizens of France.
Attal is (was) the prime minister and head of government. He’s elected by the members of parliament. He’s appointed by the president but needs majority support in parliament.
“To form a government” usually means that someone is tasked by the head of state (president or king) to come up with a group of people (cabinet) that has majority support in the house(s) of parliament. That’s easy for Starmer when Labour has a majority. In other countries like the Netherlands, Germany, or Italy, that usually requires a coalition.
That will now also be the case in France.
Imagine you have a book that’s written in Korean. If you gave it to me and asked me to read it out loud, I wouldn’t be able to make sense out of it. If you gave it to a Korean person, however, they could read it perfectly fine.
The book itself hasn’t changed — just the person reading the book. And that person has a different set of skills (or instructions, if you will).