Lhe adoption, at first reading, Friday July 22, of the bill on purchasing power after four days and four nights of invectives and suspensions of sessions is rich in lessons: the oppositions dreamed of fighting it out with the government placed on the defensive, for lack of an absolute majority. They had to adapt their game to reality, take into account the state of mind of the French, both disillusioned with politics but primarily concerned by the adoption of measures intended to protect their power of purchase, through, in particular, the revaluation of basic pensions and social minima.
The culture of compromise, so foreign to the country, scores a point. Monday, July 18, at the start of the discussion, the government did not know if it would find enough allies to have these measures adopted. He finally unearthed 341, a significant number against the no camp, which totaled only 116 votes. To broaden his base, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, had to multiply the signs of listening and availability without giving in too much to the outbidding encountered on his way. The version adopted by the deputies is quite close to the one that was initially presented, but to write it, it was necessary to follow a long initiatory journey punctuated by uncertainties and pitfalls. Contrary to the previous five-year term, the government and the majority know that they will never find respite, that they will be constantly obliged to argue, to concede and to ward off attacks from all sides. Nothing will ever be acquired.
LR openly courted
Opposition parties with a governmental culture, for their part, quickly realized that it would be difficult for them to oppose measures intended to protect the most vulnerable against the misdeeds of inflation. Openly courted by the government, the Les Républicains (LR) party quickly put its antimacronism under the bushel to vote in favor of the text, subject to a few concessions. The Socialist Party (PS), meanwhile, mostly opted for abstention, at the cost of a first stroke of the penknife in the contract which binds it to the rest of the Nupes.
Caught between the macronists and the National Rally (RN), LR knows that its survival depends on its ability to negotiate its votes as dearly as possible. The position of the PS is more ambiguous: in opposition but not at any price. More or less reluctantly, these two parties are fully-fledged players in a compromise approach which is still only in its infancy.
Most notable was the divergent play of La France insoumise (LFI) and the RN, who are fiercely competing for the role of first opponent. Where Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s troops have multiplied attempts at obstruction, refusing any form of compromise with a text accused of playing “against wages”those of Marine Le Pen opted for a two-step attitude at the cost of a radical contradiction: after having implacably criticized the text, they voted for it, arguing that everything was good to take to improve the ordinary of the most fragile .
This quest for responsibility and respectability by the RN has had the effect of isolating LFI in the caricatural role of troublemaker both theatrical and impotent, rejecting everything that comes from the government but unable to materialize an alternative. By betting wrongly on a crisis scenario leading to a rapid dissolution of the National Assembly, Jean-Luc Mélenchon takes the risk of dragging his troops into a dead end.