If Michel Barnier and his government are censored, the President of the Republic must quickly appoint a new Prime Minister. Emmanuel Macron has already consulted suitors.
France has not emerged from the political crisis it is going through. The adoption of the budget – which could be subject to censorship – reminds those who have forgotten that the executive has always been very fragile. Emmanuel Macron's choice to appoint Michel Barnier to Matignon gave the keys to the National Rally. Without the tacit support of the RN, the artifice no longer holds, the government faces political and arithmetic reality: its line is very much in the minority in the National Assembly, the deputies of the opposition parties are more numerous than those of the parties of Michel Barnier's “common base”. In short, there is nothing abnormal about the budget being rejected and the government falling if it is censored: the opposition opposes, the Assembly decides who does not govern. The rule of our institutions, neither more nor less.
Emmanuel Macron knows this very well, so we will have to move quickly to replace Michel Barnier at Matignon, if the latter is dismissed from his position following a censure voted this week. But who to choose and on which line? The new Prime Minister and the government he will be responsible for putting in place will have to, if they want to hold and propose an alternative budget, ensure that they have the implicit support of a majority of deputies. We are simply returning to the same institutional situation as before the appointment of Michel Barnier.
According to information from Politico, the Head of State is already anticipating and has asked “a certain number of political leaders over the past 48 hours” who could take over the files from Matignon. A “familiar with the Elysée” and a “high-ranking advisor” even assured that Emmanuel Macron is “already consulting” to find a replacement for Michel Barnier.
A new Prime Minister without censorship
The President of the Republic should remain on the same line as before: for him, it is the ability to ensure stability that is important. He must therefore find a new head of government who will not be immediately censored. The appointment of an NFP Prime Minister is therefore excluded, since all of the deputies of Marine Le Pen and Eric Ciotti would censure the government, as would a very large majority of the deputies of the central bloc. The easiest way for Emmanuel Macron would be to renew the tacit deal with Marine Le Pen. And it is not excluded that a figure from a more identity-based right would do the trick for Matignon.
A name is even mentioned in the newspaper La Tribune Dimanche, which remains at this stage a very uncertain hypothesis: that of Bruno Retailleau. The newspaper wonders about his possible appointment, and delivers this confidence: “The tenant of the Elysée judges the Minister of the Interior, whom he did not know before, very reliable and respectful of the institutions.”
With such a choice, Emmanuel Macron could leave his hands free to the one who arrived at Place Beauvau by ensuring that the regulation of immigration should be a priority. The same one who publicly declared that immigration was “not an opportunity” and that penal policy needed to be thoroughly reviewed. A line that could convince Marine Le Pen to refrain from all censorship… until the next disagreement.
There remains one scenario that we cannot exclude today: that Emmanuel Macron proposes another equation to part of the left. Could he propose Matignon to a socialist figure, who would be supported by the entire central bloc and by some of the deputies of the current NFP? A possible way out of the crisis, but which would mark a definitive fracture within the NFP and a schism with LFI.
