Following Emmanuel Macron’s outstretched hand to Republicans on Wednesday night, more than half of French people say they are “in favor” of a rapprochement between the president and the right.
In fact, our new “L’Opinion en direct” poll conducted by the Elabe Institute for BFMTV, which we broadcast this Friday, shows that 57% of the French are in favor of Emmanuel Macron and the right working together on certain reforms. 41% of those surveyed are opposed and 2% have no opinion.
On Wednesday, on France 2, Emmanuel Macron estimated that “the government and the majority in the Assembly” have an interest in working with the Republican deputies to approve the reforms on work, pensions, immigration and renewable energy.
“And yes, I wish there was an alliance,” he added.
It should be noted that among the people interviewed by Elabe for “L’Opinion en direct”, some have seen, in whole or in part, the interview with Emmanuel Macron on France 2, or have heard of it. Some, on the other hand, have not seen it at all.
An alliance mentioned by Nicolas Sarkozy
Republicans have 62 members and related members in the National Assembly. The presidential majority is only relative, with 251 deputies. To obtain an absolute majority, set at 289 votes, it therefore needs the right to have its texts adopted.
The idea of a rapprochement was also raised by former President Nicolas Sarkozy, in the Sunday newspaper this week: “Sometimes I wish he would cross the Rubicon in a more frank way, because France today is mainly on the side of the party of authority, firmness, freedom. Call it center right, center, republican right, whatever : there is clearly the strategic axis of the country.
“If I had one wish, it would be for the political matrix of the president to be closer to the matrix of the country as I feel it,” continues Nicolas Sarkozy.
The political action of the executive is also perceived more from the right. 48% of those surveyed believe that the political orientation of Emmanuel Macron and the government is rather to the right, 40% to the center and 11% to the left.
LR, “majority spare wheel” for Mélenchon
Some in Les Républicains, however, do not hear it that way: “We are not compatible with Macron, because we have differences in size,” the president of the Senate’s LR group, Bruno Retailleau, told the Public Senate on Friday.
The other opposition parties are not necessarily in favor of such a rapprochement either. “It may happen that the Republicans are tired of making the spare wheel of the majority”, suggested Thursday on France 2, for example, the candidate of La France insoumise (LFI) for the presidential elections, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, while being asked about the possibility of adopting a motion of censure.
To the new 49.3 outlined by Elisabeth Borne on the Social Security budget, the RN and LFI deputies responded this Thursday by presenting a motion of censure for each group.
But if House Republicans, or at least some of them, don’t vote for these motions, they have almost no chance of mustering the 289 votes needed to pass and force the government to resign. The first three motions of censure in this parliamentary session were rejected.
Sample of 1,000 people representative of residents of mainland France over 18 years of age. The representativeness of the sample was ensured according to the quota method applied to the following variables: sex, age and profession of the interviewee after stratification by region and agglomeration category. Internet interview from October 26 to 27, 2022.
Source: BFM TV
