2023-12-18 11:00:10
Members of the government around the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, at the National Assembly, in Paris, December 12, 2023. JULIEN MUGUET FOR “LE MONDE”
Macronist elected officials are preparing to go through a highly perilous week for the unity of their camp. In the wake of the adoption of the motion to reject the immigration bill in the Assembly, a joint committee (CMP) composed of seven deputies and seven senators must find a compromise, Monday, December 18, on the government text. Without waiting for the outcome of the CMP, the concessions already made to the right and the centrists, the majority in this parliamentary closed session, promise to be politically costly.
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The Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, who is leading the negotiations, finds herself torn between her desire to consolidate an agreement with Les Républicains (LR) and the pressure from her left wing which sees in this alliance with the right “a betrayal of the original macronism”. Caught in the crossfire, the tenant of Matignon has been insisting for a week that an agreement with the LR will not be achieved at the cost of the unity of her majority. “The objective is that we do not lose a single MP in this agreement”, poses Guillaume Gouffier Valente, deputy for Val-de-Marne, one of those responsible for the text on immigration for Renaissance.
During the weekend preceding the CMP, those responsible for the relative majority increased the number of calls to their deputies to assess the extent of the reluctance. The hypothesis that some of the Macronist elected officials are missing during the final vote, Tuesday, in the Assembly to vote on a text validated in CMP is likely. “There is a fire in the house”summarizes the Renaissance deputy for Hérault Patrick Vignal, who urges his colleagues to vote on a text to counter “the devastating effect of political impotence”.
Battle for influence
Most parliamentarians are waiting for the outcome of the CMP discussions to determine their choice. Monday morning, the estimates circulating showed between twenty and thirty deputies from the presidential camp ready to abstain or oppose the bill. Among them, two former ministers (Stéphane Travert and Joël Giraud), the former leader of the Renaissance deputies, Gilles Le Gendre and above all an overwhelming majority of elected officials in place since 2017. Dissensions which take place in a judged atmosphere “deleterious” et “worrying” since the frictions that appeared at Renaissance around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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The text on immigration carried by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, reopens a gaping divide already observed in 2018 during the examination of the asylum and immigration bill carried by his predecessor, Gérard Collomb. Five years later, this new debate on the migration question is superimposed on a battle for influence between the right wing – defectors from LR to the party of Edouard Philippe, Horizons, supporters of an agreement with the party of Eric Ciotti – and the left wing of Renaissance which stands on the need to preserve the “at the same time”.
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