What happens if the political puzzle after the fall of François Bayrou resorted to the failure of security? On the eve of the mobilization of September 10 and the 600 initiatives listed that range from blocking the great French stations to the Paris device, the pressure increases on Emmanuel Macron to quickly name a successor to the tenant of Matignon now renouncing.
“France very quickly needs a prime minister” to face “the risks of overflow,” said Interior Minister Bruno Retilleau, on Tuesday, September 9 at the BFMTV microphone.
Now overthrown, the François Bayrou Government has a limited latitude. As a note from the General Secretariat of the Government, this agency responsible for the legal advisor to the ministerial teams, the centrist and his team can now only guarantee current issues.
Specifically, this is to administer “the daily management of the State” and “urgent issues that cannot expect the appointment of a new government,” said constitutionalist Jean-Philippe Derosier in last summer with BFMTV.
Freedom in the police system
Bruno Retailleau maintains all the freedom to work more widely in the system to maintain the order linked to “block everything” in the next few days. He announced Monday night at the end of the day the mobilization of 80,000 police and gendarmes. Who is still a tenant of Beauvau place also gathered the prefects this Tuesday morning in his ministry.
Enough to avoid overflows? The Paris Laurent Nuñez Police prefect indicated in our antenna on Tuesday, wait “quite difficult actions.” For example, citizens meet on Wednesday at 6 am on Wednesday to block the Rocades of Nantes and Rennes. Several general meetings must also be held in Parisian stations.
Industrial sites and refineries could also stop, as well as one of the largest logistics warehouses in Amazon in France in Essonne.
If the situation was complicated from a security point of view, Bruno Retailleau could quickly be deprived of the legislative lever. In this context, the establishment of an emergency state, for example, seems very uncertain.
The possibility of establishing a very uncertain emergency state
This regime allows to strengthen the powers of the authorities restricting certain freedoms, however, guaranteed by the Constitution. Therefore, residence tasks, the prohibition to demonstrate or even administrative searches.
It is in the Council of Ministers, to be the Government and the President of the Republic, that the decision must establish the state of emergency. It lasts twelve days, but if the government wishes to extend it, you must ask the Parliament to decide.
The establishment of the state of emergency was mentioned during the riots linked to the death of the young Nahel killed by a police officer in the summer of 2023. Without formally calling it, Bruno Retailleau, at the time of the president of the senators of LR, was favorable.
But with a renouncing government, the situation changes. First obstacle: gather a Council of Ministers. If your outfit is not precedents under the fifth republic, it only took place twice. And again: with a “particularly light” agenda, as the General Secretariat of the Government recalls in its 2024 note. The state of emergency, which restricts certain fundamental freedoms, obviously does not fall in this category.
“Exceptional circumstances”
Another problem: unite the Parliament if the government wanted to extend the state of emergency. “There have never been, during the issuance of current bills adopted by Parliament,” this body also specifies.
Unless … the General Secretariat of Government Judges, as well as “the theory of exceptional circumstances allows to repeal the rules.” But the note does not deny the “delicacy” that would represent the establishment of an emergency state from a legal point of view, an unprecedented act until now.
In the two possible options, whether it is a Council of Ministers that supports an emergency state or the citation of Parliament that would not have the ability to overthrow the government “already resigned, appeals to the Constitutional Council would be almost safe.
Other levers that would no longer be at the hands of Bruno Retilleau: the appointment of new prefects. The most politically sensitive appointments are excluded from current issues are excluded, “the General Secretariat of the Government specifies.
If the Executive is not exceptional for the Executive to suddenly appreciate the prefects, as could be the case last January in Indre-Et-Loire, the renuncant minister of the interior, therefore, could not claim the departure of a prefect that would not follow his order order for the movement “block everything”.
“Political” firmness instructions?
Last point that could be discussed: the use of circular with magistrates to advocate for “firmness” in case of conviction of the participants on September 10, which would not respect the law.
Would they be considered to belong to the maintenance of current affairs by guaranteeing “the continuity of the State” with an “imperative need” or, on the contrary, would it be “political nature”? This will ask “delicate legal questions,” specifies the General Secretariat of the Government.
In the Elysée, we delay. Emmanuel Macron promised in a press release to appoint a new prime minister in the next few days. Last December, he said he would give a successor to Michel Barnier “within 24 hours” after his fall. He had finally taken ten days.
Source: BFM TV
