Tense negotiations for the legislative elections, union of the left, difficulties in choosing a prime minister: Emmanuel Macron, who will be officially sworn in on Saturday for his second term, gives the impression of groping before the recomposition of the political landscape.
Emmanuel Macron may not have breathed a sigh of relief, far from it, despite everything. After reaching a pact for the legislative elections on June 12 and 19 with François Bayrou’s Democratic Movement and Édouard Philippe’s Horizons party, the French president and his party, The Republic on the Move, whose official name is now Renaissance, has closed the union agreement within a confederation called Ensemble (Together).
The presidential party will be represented in some 400 constituencies. François Bayrou, Macron’s decisive ally in the 2017 presidential elections, would again win around 100 seats. For his part, former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe will present 58 candidates.
Although this alliance was expected, it was nevertheless achieved with much suffering. The discussions were especially tense with Édouard Philippe, who had hoped at the beginning of the talks to get up to 140 candidates to have a majority for the next five years.
“There is no constituency for Horizontes, they are idiots! Do you owe me everything and do you think we are the same? You smoked the gases from the port of Le Havre …”, Emmanuel Macron said at the end of April, according to comments collected by Europe 1, although denied by the Elysee.
Well aware that it is impossible, after a tumultuous first five years, to obtain an absolute majority in the National Assembly with his party alone, as in 2017, Macron has finally granted a distribution of constituencies that satisfies all his allies, although Edouard Philippe has had to rethink its ambitions downwards.
The president also had to grant each component the possibility of obtaining a parliamentary group in the National Assembly.
The leader of Renaissance, Stanislas Guérini, announced this Friday May 6 on the French network RTL that he aspired to get 340 deputies for Ensemble, that is, as many as the current number of deputies of the presidential majority.
The union of the left took the majority by surprise
Will the goal be achieved? The political landscape has changed in five years and, with it, the president’s strategy.
In 2017, the objective was clear: after having devastated the Socialist Party during the presidential campaign, it was necessary to fracture the right in the face of the legislative elections.
The appointments of Édouard Philippe as Prime Minister, Bruno Le Maire as Economy Minister and Gérald Darmanin as Finance Minister served this purpose.
But this year, and almost two weeks after his re-election, Emmanuel Macron seems to be stumbling along with the ongoing recomposition of the political landscape.
The president has occupied so much political space on the right for five years that the candidate of the Republicans, Valérie Pécresse, obtained only 4.78% of the votes in the first round of the presidential elections. The Republicans is now a territory in ruins that is about to experience some difficult legislative elections.
On the other hand, the large percentage of support for the progressive Jean-Luc Mélenchon (21.95%) has created a dynamic on the left that has led this week to an unprecedented union between La France Insumisa, Los Verdes, the Communist Party and the Socialist Party.
This New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) has set itself the goal of winning the legislative elections, which the ‘unsubmissive’ have renamed the “third round of the presidential elections”.
Judging by the numerous attacks that this alliance has provoked, Macronismo gives, at least, the sensation of having been taken by surprise.
Two examples, among others: “Incredible all these people supposedly full of principles, willing to abandon all convictions -and our energy independence- for a handful of constituencies”, commented on Twitter, on Monday, May 2, the deputy of the majority Sacha Houlié.
Incroyable tous ces gens prétendument pétris de principes, prêts à abandonner toute conviction – et notre indépendance énergétique – pour une poignée de circonscriptions.
Et ils veulent gouverner notre pays? https://t.co/FhOQokbHpW
— Sacha Houlié (@SachaHoulie) May 2, 2022
“The union of the left is a sad event for many French people. Seeing that the Socialist Party (PS) agrees to sign the end of everything they have done and wanted to do, for example on Europe, is a despair for many” said François Bayrou, leader of the Democratic Movement on Tuesday, May 3, on the France Inter channel.
The reinforced return of the left and the ideological turn taken by the PS on this occasion could allow Emmanuel Macron to reinforce his left wing by welcoming some socialist figures who until now had resisted taking the step. François Hollande’s former prime minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, who left the PS after the validation of the agreement on Thursday night, could thus inherit the Palais d’Orsay, according to the local publication ‘Journal du Dimanche’.
The difficult search for a prime minister
The agreement with La France Insumisa causes dissension at all levels of the Socialist Party, as some see Jean-Luc Mélenchon, either because of his image or his ideas, as “a red rag”, according to the general director of Ifop Frédéric Dabi, quoted by the AFP agency.
On Tuesday, May 3, the ministers and several hundred local elected officials from the Territories of Progress, another of the largest center-left parties, published an article in the newspaper ‘L’Opinion’ in which they called all the ” left-wing people” to join them.
The only problem is that, apart from the fact that most of the social democrats and social liberals in the Socialist Party have already joined Emmanuel Macron for a long time, it is an ambitious balancing act to approach the left while pursuing a right-wing policy. .
And although the president winked at progressivism during the campaign for the second round of the presidential elections by saying that “this five-year period will be ecological or it won’t be”, his program is above all marked by his proposals on retirement at 65 years of age and the Active Solidarity Income (RSA) conditioned to the working day.
This equation, a priori impossible to solve, undoubtedly explains his apparent difficulties in finding a prime minister who meets all the requirements. Two women have already turned down the job, according to the press.
Approached the day after the second round, Véronique Bédague, former cabinet director of Prime Minister Manuel Valls and current general director of the real estate group Nexity, disregarded the offer, according to information from the newspaper ‘Le Parisien’ confirmed to AFP.
Like the president of the socialist group in the National Assembly, Valérie Rabault, who declared to the digital ‘HuffPost’ that it would have been impossible for her to defend retirement at 65.
So the search continues. The government spokesman, Gabriel Attal, announced on Wednesday May 4 that Jean Castex, current prime minister, would remain in Matignon, the official residence of the ‘premier’, at least until June 13.
Meanwhile, the latter grows impatient. “This was not the deal”, he would have responded, according to ‘L’Opinion’, to Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to remain in office until the legislative elections.
*Article adapted from the original French version
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