This Wednesday, Elisabeth Borne reaches the momentum of her consultations that began a few days ago, with the hope of “expanding” the majority of the presidential field and “appeasing the country.” The President of the Government receives not only the inter-union but also the leaders of the Les Républicains (LR) party, a natural ally that is not really one, since the formation led by Éric Ciotti has recently been divided.
For the head of government, this day is all about a litmus test. Very damaged politically by an unpopular reform and approved without the vote of the deputies with 49.3, the head of government seeks a way out of the crisis.
The unions press
For the past few days, she has been the “dialogue” champion. A refrain not new, for whom she only has a relative majority in the National Assembly. But the song survived, after a sequence where the opposition did not stop denouncing the “forceful steps” of the Executive. Widely discussed, is Elisabeth Borne still capable of ruling?
The unions put pressure on him. By the way, everyone will be present this Wednesday at 10 am and the former Minister of Transport was delighted. However, the discussions could be interrupted. Although the two sides will meet for the first time in months, the tectonic plates are not moving.
The inter-union wants, according to its various representatives, a minimum “pause” of the reform, or a total withdrawal. Élisabeth Borne wants to project herself and address many topics such as “quality of life at work”, “prevention of hardships” or “end of career”.
A date that could be “very fast”
If the Prime Minister says that she is “listening to all the issues” and therefore the text on pensions, this Friday she was firm when declaring:
“There is a bill that is being examined in the Constitutional Council (which will give its opinion on April 14, editor’s note). We cannot rest when we have a bill voted, which is under review”.
The executive delays. He waits for the green light from the Elders for his text to gain legitimacy. But the centrals intend not to let him have full control of the agenda. If there is no talk of 64 years during the Matignon meeting, “we will leave,” warned Laurent Berger, head of the CFDT.
Sophie Binet, her new CGT counterpart since last Friday, is even more categorical. Unless she decides to withdraw the text, “the meeting is likely to be very quick,” she says. Such a scenario could further weaken the Prime Minister.
How to reach agreements with the “60 autoentrepreneurs of LR”?
For her, the equation is not limited to unions. Resuming the language with them will not be enough. Elisabeth Borne also faces a political question: how to reach an agreement with the opposition to approve these texts? Or, put another way, how not to repeat the fiasco of pensions with a government that multiplied the concessions to the LR without managing to gather the support of this entire group?
The right, precisely, will go to Matignon at 7:00 p.m. They are expected: Éric Ciotti, president of the party, Olivier Marleix, leader of the group of deputies of LR, and Bruno Retailleau, head of senators of LR. They had all finished off with Elisabeth Borne in the pension reform, but they failed to unite the group of deputies, whose members are sometimes described as “60 auto-entrepreneurs.”
The rue de Vaugirard party has already warned: it does not want to ally itself with the majority. “This question does not arise”, recently declared Éric Ciotti in le Figaro, warning that “any individual poaching will contribute to a radicalization of positions”.
The same story with Gérard Larcher, LR President of the Senate, who advocated in LCI for a “line that remains independent”, while indicating that his people can work “around successive texts” with the government.
In this configuration, the right could weigh all its weight in the executive’s accounts. But he must avoid the “poison of division”, in the words of Éric Ciotti.
Clément Beaune wants to “work” with “the moderate left”
Within the presidential field, some invite you to look at the other side of the chamber. In an interview in ReleaseClément Beaune asks the majority “not to lock themselves in a dialogue with Les Républicains, calling on the “moderate left” to “get out of the clutches of Jean-Luc Mélenchon” and “work” with the government.
The Minister of Transport thus distinguishes La France Insoumise (LFI) and the New Popular Ecologist and Social Union (Nupes), to which the other left-wing formations also belong.
For him, an outstretched hand towards his parliamentarians is all the more necessary since LR “is not a stable political force.” Clément Beaune, who has never described the entire Nupes as “extreme left”, unlike some of his colleagues, recalls that agreements have been reached with certain groups in the alliance.
Take recent examples like the nuclear law, “approved by the communists,” and the renewable energy law, “approved by the socialists.”
But there, too, the case will be far from simple for Elisabeth Borne, as her opposition pointed out during the pension reform. For her, it’s double or quit. If they fail to dialogue with the unions, to find points of agreement with the opposition, their ability to govern will be clearly flawed. And her fate could then be written away from Matignon.
Source: BFM TV
