How to turn an electoral failure into a political opportunity? This is the whole question that crosses the groups of the presidential coalition, a week after the second round of the legislative elections and the loss of their absolute majority. After five years of having had free rein in the National Assembly, while being attached to a very strong executive power, the 246 deputies of Together! – which includes La République en Marche (LRM), the MoDem and Horizons – will have to get used to this new deal when they no longer have the 289 elected officials necessary to have their policy adopted.
If they want to put the presidential project to music – who must stay “the basis of discussion” with the opposition, as the Head of State, Emmanuel Macron, assured again this weekend in an interview with Agence France-Presse – they will now have to deal with the right and the left, even if it means make ” compromise “ and « concessions ». A vocabulary rarely used in the last five years.
Paradigm shift
After fearing a blockage of parliamentary activity, the elected Macronists are trying to put on a good face, seeing it as an opportunity to have more responsibilities and weight in the face of an executive that is now weakened. For the elected (Horizons) of Charente Thomas Mesnier, “the balances will now be designed in the National Assembly”. “We are obliged to dialogue with the other groups to reach consensus solutions”, considers for his part the deputy (LRM) of Dear François Cormier-Bouligeon. A welcome paradigm shift according to him after “fifteen years of hysteria in political debate and permanent bashing” in the Hemicycle, caused in particular by the establishment of the five-year term which strengthened presidential power to the detriment of parliamentary work.
“The relative majority can allow moderates to talk to each other to find project majorities”, he hopes. In this legislature which opens Tuesday, June 28 with the election of the President of the National Assembly, a ballot where the ephemeral Minister for Overseas Yaël Braun-Pivet is the favorite, the postures of each other are upset. For texts to be adopted, the macronists, who like to remember that they are “the first political force of the country”, will however need the votes of deputies sitting in opposition. And the members of the opposition will have to consider voting measures that they rejected a few weeks earlier. “People were elected to be either in the opposition or in the majority, but I am waiting for the opposition forces to become a force of proposalwarns Mr. Mesnier. We have to work together, we have no choice. »
You have 50.51% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.