The always nightlife French politics can experience a new episode in 48 hours. And, at this time, everything indicates that it will be sounded. The opposition threatens make fall to the current government headed by Michel Barnier in which La Francia Insumisa and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally have promised to join.
A sum that would make the support of the macronist forces is uselessin response to the presidential decision to approve the budgets via ‘decree’ and against the majority of critics in the Assembly.
The resource of motion of censure in Parliament French is common as an element of pressure either against ‘Matignon’, the residence of the Prime Minister, or even as a ‘wake-up call’ to the President of the Republic. In just over half a century the hundred motionsof every sign and almost identical result, because it is not at all common for it to take effect and cause the Government to resign en bloc. It only happened in 1962 with the fall of Georges Pompidou.
Perhaps in less than 48 hours another of those ‘historic’ moments can be experienced in a country that continues to add milestones to its daily political life.
What has happened?
The easy thing would be to say what hasn’t happened in recent months. The precipitating element has been Barnier’s decision to approve by decree its budget law for Social Security‘pulling’ of article 49.3 of the French Constitution to overcome the more than foreseeable blockade of the Assembly.
The current president has called it an “exercise of responsibility” that includes adjustment measures in a context of serious national deficit crisis, with the debt and risk premium soared. The opposition has not taken it as such. In fact, this ‘challenge’ has been the point of no return for a left that Barnier was already looking forward to since he was chosen by Macron just three months ago, instead of a candidate from his bloc, the winner in the summer legislative elections.
The president of the parliamentary group of La Francia Insumisa, Mathilde Panothas denounced the political “chaos” and has insisted that “it is not possible in a democracy.” The National Group of Marine Le Penwho has already advanced his ‘yes’ to the motion against the Government… unless last minute agreement. “But I have little hope that he will be enlightened by grace,” ironically said the recent candidate and Le Pen’s right wing leader, Jordan Bardella.
Its formation clings to a amendment to index pensions to inflationalthough they have taken the edge off a possible victory for the motion. Last year’s accounts would be extended and “there will be a new prime minister and he will adopt a new budget,” the leader herself pointed out.
everything will be known on Wednesday. For now, the parliamentary arithmetic arising from the recent elections puts the Executive led by Barnier on the ropes after the .
What can happen with the motion?
A common vote among all the deputies who emerged from the New Popular Front (unsubmissivesocialists, environmentalists and communists among them) and the extreme right combines enough support to bring down the Government, which enjoys a weak position in the Assembly. Le Pen has already announced that, apart from the motion that they will present on their own, will support other initiatives, “wherever they come from”.
Therefore, the least likely scenario is that Michel Barnier saves the debate and subsequent vote and get more support than rejection, which would allow him to stay in office… beyond the subsequent measures that Emmanuel Macron himself could adopt.
If the foreseeable happens and the opposition unites against Barnier, the parliamentary mechanism would act immediately against him and his cabinet. Unlike Spain and other countries, in France the motions of censure are not constructive, they have no alternative candidatebut they are launched with the sole purpose of ending the government.
This would force Macron to initiate a new round of contacts with the parliamentary forces to name a new prime minister to succeed what would become the shortest of the current era in the French country. An even more complex horizon, given the refusal of the head of state to propose a left-wing candidate despite the legislative victory of the New Popular Frontthe unit platform articulated against the clock to avoid what pointed to success at the polls of the Lepenist extreme right.
Could there be new elections?
Whether the Government falls or not, what is certain is that for the moment there will be no changes in the Assembly itself and, therefore, there will be no early elections.
By law, the president of the Republic can’t dissolve the cameras and take out the legislative ballot boxes again until it has passed at least a year of the previous electoral call. The elections held on June 30 and July 7 require the chamber to be maintained at least until that date in 2025.
eight months which, at this point, seem like a world away given the political polarization and the ever-shrinking network of Macronist support.
