A live seduction operation. Emmanuel Macron once again reached out to the Republicans this Wednesday night. The move is intended to allow the president to push through his next reforms.
“He really has no choice. The success of his mandate is subject to our good will,” Marc-Philippe Daubresse, LR senator and former minister of Nicolas Sarkozy, summed up with BFMTV.com.
“Yes, I wish there was an alliance”
In the absence of an absolute majority since the last legislative elections, the president has continued to pull poles to the right, until Wednesday night.
“With these parliamentarians (LR) who are not the majority today, the government and the majority in the Assembly have an interest in working to approve the labor reform, the pension reform, the immigration reform that we are going to do, the reform that we are going to make on renewable energies, launched the president in France 2.
Before striking: “and yes, I wish there was an alliance.”
A very conciliatory right
This attempt to bring the right into the fold of the presidential majority is far from new. The day after the election of 252 deputies from the presidential majority, far from the 289 necessary to guarantee that the texts presented during the presidential campaign can be voted on, Emmanuel Macron begins talks in the Elysee with all the parliamentary groups.
But it is Les Républicains and their 62 deputies who are the object of all wishes, again found by Élisabeth Borne a few days later, then again at the beginning of the school year.
Matignon then seeks to gauge the Republicans’ position on the 2023 budget review, to little avail. “We will vote against this budget, we will not abstain”, launches even Olivier Marleix, the head of the LR deputies. Well, maybe, but the right was extremely quiet on the finance bill, as it was on the Social Security bill.
“We saw three or four deputies march… And that’s all about the most important text of the parliamentary session. We can clearly see the discomfort of the right that feels that our budget options are close to theirs,” underlines deputy Éric Woerth, Nicolas Sarkozy’s former budget minister, now attached to Renaissance.
Without the vote of the LR, “we are burned”
Even better for the government: when the Nupes and RN motions of censure were presented, after 49.3 activated by the Prime Minister, the LR abstained, refusing to “add chaos to chaos.”
Which gives hope to Emmanuel Macron, who has almost no chance of raising the retirement age to 65 without voices from the right. Excluding budget texts, the executive can only use one 49.3 per parliamentary session. Suffice it to say that if the president also wants his immigration or renewable energy bills passed, he must ensure his support at all costs.
“We have to play it very carefully to pass as many things as possible. If not, we can no longer reform ourselves and they burn us there”, deciphers a Renaissance deputy.
Let us remember Macron’s desire for a coalition
Most can, however, take a breath when we look at the analysis of their fellow LR votes at the end of the summer. Annie Genevard, who is currently the interim president of the movement, voted for 96% of the texts approved by the government. Éric Ciotti, who is running for the presidency of LR He himself had said yes to 82% of the executive’s texts.
After the interview with Nicolas Sarkozy in the JDD who called for “a political agreement” between the right and the macronies, the deputy for the Alpes-Maritimes may well say that he is “of course totally against” this option, the macronies believe in it’s
“Our approach is to regularly remind the LRs that we can make a coalition agreement by discussing texts and a timetable,” says Guillaume Karasbian, chairman (Renaissance) of the National Assembly’s economic affairs committee.
“Yes to case-by-case agreements”
If the LR deputies do not intend to be “the crutch of macronism”, to use the expression of Patrick Hetzel, vice president of the right-wing group in the Assembly, they intend to validate the texts that they consider acceptable.
Starting with pensions. For several years now, the Senate right has also voted in each Social Security budget to extend the retirement age to 65.
“We will never be in a government agreement but when he takes up our proposals, of course we say yes”, advances Senator LR Marc-Philippe Daubresse.
No dissolution if LRs vote on texts
And to point out that the president does not hesitate to dive into the ideas of the right. To resolve the issue of medical merits, Emmanuel Macron thus evoked this Wednesday night the possibility of facilitating the practice of retired doctors… a proposal by the deputy LR Philippe Juvin, so far rejected by the presidential majority.
If the right finally changes its mind, preventing the president from passing landmark reforms, Emmanuel Macron does, however, have a weapon: the dissolution of the National Assembly. He had also made it known that he would not hesitate to take this option if he did not get the pension reform approved. This election would be quite a disaster for the LR which, despite a disastrous presidential election, managed to maintain a large group at the Palais-Bourbon.
“Why do you want me to tie my hands?” The president finally tempered this Wednesday night, when asked about this option. Enough to send a message that a majority, on a case-by-case basis, could do well and allow the right to keep their workforce.
Source: BFM TV
