After 51 days without a Prime Minister and endless consultations, Emmanuel Macron has finally made a decision, appointing Michel Barnier as Prime Minister after incessant rumours from the right to the left during this transition period.
But with an Assembly so fragmented between three blocs and threats of censure, his future already seems threatened at Matignon, in the more or less long term. While France Insoumise has already announced the filing of a motion of censure, the National Rally has announced that it will wait for Michel Barnier’s general policy statement before making a decision. But what are the means of bringing down the Prime Minister?
The most common way to try to bring down a Prime Minister and his government is the motion of censure. Gabriel Attal has been targeted by several of them, all of which failed due to a lack of sufficient votes in the Assembly. His predecessor, Élisabeth Borne, faced 27 motions of censure, again without falling.
To be considered admissible, a motion of censure must be signed by one tenth of the members of the National Assembly, i.e. 58 deputies. The RN (126 deputies), LFI (72) and the PS and related parties (66) are the three opposition groups that have enough deputies to file a motion of censure. The other groups will have to rely on support from other political parties.
Once filed, the motion of censure must be voted on by a majority of the members of the National Assembly to be adopted. This is the difficulty encountered by motions of censure since 1958. Only one has been adopted. Furthermore, abstentions are not counted, which establishes a threshold of 289 votes (out of 577) in favor of the motion to bring down the government. A period of 48 hours must be observed between the filing of the motion of censure and its possible vote.
All the motions of censure filed failed due to insufficient votes. The closest to success was filed in March 2023 by the LIOT group. It failed by nine votes. But that was before the dissolution of the Assembly, and its new composition, which reshuffle the balance cards.
The Le Monde simulator, for example, allows us to see that a motion of censure voted by all RN deputies and their allies and the deputies of the New Popular Front would be adopted with 335 votes, enough to leave enough room for the defection of certain deputies.
Paragraph 3 of Article 49 of the Constitution provides that the government may have a text adopted without a vote, a weapon which could be used by the government in view of the composition of the Assembly.
In return for this forceful passage, which is increasingly criticized by the opposition, the deputies can try to bring down the government, as was the case with the government of Élisabeth Borne. But no motion of censure tabled after the use of 49-3 has ever been adopted under the Fifth Republic. A motion of censure that meets the previous criteria.
Last chance for the deputies to bring down the Prime Minister and his government, in the event that the tenant of Matignon asks for confidence from the deputies at the end of his general policy statement. In the days following his appointment, tradition dictates that the Prime Minister presents the main lines of his future policy and asks for confidence from the deputies. The latter may not vote for it, thus bringing down the Prime Minister and his government, a scenario that has never happened before.
But this vote of confidence is not a necessary step, Gabriel Attal and Élisabeth Borne did not ask for confidence. In reaction, the opposition had filed a motion of censure which had failed.
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