Emmanuel Macron will try to regain control. The President of the Republic successively invited to the Elysée, Tuesday and Wednesday, June 22, the representatives of the political forces present in the new Assembly, where the absence of an absolute majority threatens to make the country ungovernable.
Remained silent since the announcement of the legislative results, the Head of State proposed to “to dialogue and [d’]trade for the higher interest of the nation” with these political leaders, in order to “building solutions to serve the French people”according to those around him.
Among the first leaders to have agreed to go successively to the Elysée, include Christian Jacob (Les Républicains, LR), Olivier Faure (Socialist Party), François Bayrou (MoDem), Stanislas Guerini (La République en Marche), Marine Le Pen (National Rally, RN) and Fabien Roussel (French Communist Party, PCF).
Presented as the big loser in the election, Emmanuel Macron must quickly learn the lessons, before being caught up in a tunnel of international obligations – European Council, G7, summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) – from Thursday. He discussed, Monday, the strategy to adopt during a lunch with the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, and the tenors of Ensemble!, Edouard Philippe and François Bayrou.
An inevitable change
The council of ministers scheduled for Tuesday has been postponed, as has the launch on Wednesday of the National Council for Refoundation, a tool of the “new method” consultation advocated by the President.
A reshuffle is inevitable to replace the three ministers beaten on Sunday: Amélie de Montchalin for ecological transition, Brigitte Bourguignon for health and Justine Benin for the sea.
Only two months after his re-election, the head of state is already up against the wall: should he keep Elisabeth Borne after a few weeks at Matignon? And how can he politically reorient the government to try to achieve an absolute majority in the Assembly?
“My fear is that the country is blocked”acknowledged government spokeswoman Olivia Grégoire. “It will take imagination, audacity, openness”she said, reiterating the idea of an outstretched hand to “all those who want to move the country forward”.
But this call to “a majority of action”, launched on Sunday evening by Elisabeth Borne, was firmly rejected by the opposition, with the exception of a few elected officials from the right or center left. On Monday, the acting president of the RN, Jordan Bardella, estimated that Mme Borne had to “give up his apron”.
With 246 deputies, the macronists of Together! are far from an absolute majority, set at 289 seats out of 577. They are ahead of the New People’s Ecological and Social Union (Nupes), which will have at least 142 representatives in the hemicycle. Next come the RN, which achieved a historic breakthrough (89 seats), then LR (64 seats), with an abstention rate of 53.79%.
“Motion of censure” and “blocking of reforms”
For LR Christian Jacob, “no question of pact, coalition or agreement of any kind” with the Macronists. But Catherine Vautrin, the ex-LR president of Grand Reims and a time approached for Matignon, called on the right, in an interview with Release, to take his “responsibilities” around a programmatic and government agreement with the Macron camp.
After a five-year term during which the Head of State has “trampled on Parliament like never before, (…) it now has a Parliament which will not be composed only of Playmobil”warned Mathilde Panot, elected from the left-wing coalition Nupes, who has already called for the resignation of Mme Terminal and advertised “a motion of censure” against his government.
Same intransigence at the RN. Marine Le Pen has warned that she will “implement the blocking of all reforms (…) harmful, first and foremost retirement at age 65”.
In the meantime, the left coalition will have to organize itself in the Assembly. But the first fractures appeared on Monday, with the refusal of the Socialist Party, EELV and PCF of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s proposal to form a single group.
“The left is plural. (…) Wanting to remove this diversity is a mistake, and I oppose it”said Socialist MP Valérie Rabault.
A little earlier, Jean-Luc Mélenchon had expressed his fear that the status of first opposition to Emmanuel Macron would be called into question by a scattering of forces, which would allow the RN to take the place.
Believing that the far-right party was the second most powerful, Marine Le Pen demanded that the presidency of the finance committee of the Assembly, with extended powers, be returned to one of its deputies.
A few hours after being elected, the first deputies entered the Assembly on Monday. With emotion for the new ones. ” I am very touched “, recognized Charles Rodwell, 25, deputy of Yvelines. Everyone expects hectic sessions. “Count on us to be offensive”warned the “rebellious” Clémentine Autain.