Michel Barnier, defeated on Wednesday by a motion of censure promoted by deputies from the right and left, met with Emmanuel Macron this Thursday morning. The conservative politician left the Elysée after an hour-long meeting with the head of state, during which he was scheduled to present the resignation of his Government, according to the French agency AFP.
Subsequently, the prime minister spoke briefly with the secretary general of the Elysée, Alexis Kohler, before leaving by car. Barnier will remain in office until the head of state appoints a new prime minister to form a government. Macron has already initiated contacts for this purpose, after the setback suffered by Barnier in the National Assembly the day before, explains EFE.
The motion is a response to the law on the Social Security budget, which Barnier had approved on Monday without subjecting it to a parliamentary vote. To be approved, the motion only required a simple parliamentary majority and, unlike Spain, there is no need to present an alternative candidate, so President Macron must now search for a possible head of government.
For now, the Elysée has not clarified whether the president plans to make a quick change at the head of the Executive or if he will ask Barnier to remain in office for a few days, on the eve of Paris receiving several heads of State and Government from around the world to the reopening this weekend of the Notre Dame Cathedral, five years after its fire.
Macron will address the country this Thursday at 8:00 p.m. local time to explain how he plans to address the political crisis after the fall of the Government due to this motion of censure supported by the left and the extreme right, which will also delay the approval of the budgets at a critical time for the French economy.
After the meeting with Barnier, Macron received the president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, who in a radio interview urged the president to quickly name Barnier’s replacement. Pivet has called for a government to be formed “quickly” to resume “budget discussions.”
Later, the French president will receive Gérard Lacher, the president of the Senate, in which there is a conservative majority.
The possible successors
The different political groups are beginning to mark their position in the face of the new situation that is opening up. The first to do so was the leftist Francia Insumisa, the main component of the left alliance in the National Assembly, which held a meeting last night under the presidency of its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon. This party continues to claim the position of prime minister, considering that it was the winner of the last legislative elections.
This morning, former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, leader of the Macronists, gathered his parliamentarians, something that socialists and environmentalists, two other components of the left-wing alliance, also plan to do throughout the day.
Attal has indicated that he will seek a “majority of non-censorship” to form a transitional executive that can agree on some aspects and unblock the situation, at least until next summer, when Macron can again dissolve the National Assembly and call elections. . That would presuppose that the socialists left the left alliance, something that their leaders, for now, are not considering, at least in public.
Among the names being floated to replace Barnier is the current Defense Minister, Sébastian Lecornu, a faithful Macronist, the only one who has remained in office since the president’s arrival at the Elysée in 2017. However, in statements to RTL, Lecornu He has assured that he “is not a candidate for anything.”
The figure of the veteran centrist François Bayrou also appears, in addition to the former socialist prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve or the current head of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, defender of radical positions against immigration, which could have the support of the far right.
The first successful no-confidence motion since 1962
In a historic vote, both the right and the left of the National Assembly joined forces, achieving 331 votes in favor of the motion from the 577 parliamentarians, exceeding the necessary minimum of 288. Barnier thus becomes the shortest prime minister in the modern history of France.
It is the first motion of censure to succeed in the country since 1962, and its approval automatically rejects Barnier’s controversial budget.
According to the French Constitution, it is the president who appoints the prime minister who must then form his Government.
The problem is that the National Assembly that emerged from the elections that Macron decided to call at the beginning of the summer is divided like never before into three large blocks, the left, the center-right and the extreme right, which until now have shown no signs of wanting cooperate with each other. Following French law, to get out of this blockage, new legislative elections cannot be called in one year, until the beginning of summer 2025.
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