The New Popular Front (NFP) and the National Rally (RN) will, barring any last minute surprises, bring down Michel Barnier's government this Wednesday, December 4 in the early evening. BFMTV.com takes stock, hour by hour, of the program of debates in the National Assembly.
A matter of hours. Two days after Michel Barnier's 49.3 on the Social Security budget, the National Assembly will debate this Wednesday, December 4, two motions of censure tabled by the NFP and the RN. That of the left has every chance of being adopted, the extreme right having promised to vote for it.
A weapon of control for parliamentarians, the motion of censure can, if adopted, lead to the resignation of the government. This happened only once under the Fifth Republic in 1962. As the National Assembly had 574 members on Wednesday December 4, 2024, at least 288 votes were needed for one of the two motions to be adopted.
• 3 p.m.: vote on the end of management bill for 2024
At the Palais Bourbon, the day will begin at 2 p.m., for the traditional question session with the government. An hour later, before the examination of the motions, a budgetary text could be definitively adopted at the last minute: the end of management bill for 2024.
An agreement, reached in a joint committee this Tuesday between deputies and senators, will be presented to the National Assembly. According to several parliamentary sources cited by AFP, the RN deputies abstained in the CMP, which would presage a definitive adoption without 49.3 if the group also abstains in the hemicycle.
“There is a strong chance that the text will be adopted with the abstention of certain groups,” said the budget rapporteur at the National Assembly Charles de Courson, specifying that his LIOT group would vote for.
“Without a vote on the end of management bill, no payment of rent to local authorities, no Olympic bonuses: this is also one of the challenges of censorship,” the Minister of Defense warned at the start of the week. 'Interior Bruno Retailleau.
• 4 p.m.: examination of motions begins
After the vote on the end of management bill for 2024 or the use – still possible – of a 49.3 by Michel Barnier, everything will come alive: the motions of censure from the New Popular Front and the National Rally will be debated. Because it has more signatories, it is first the left-wing text which will be presented by the president of the finance committee, the rebellious Éric Coquerel.
Marine Le Pen will then speak for the National Rally, before a speaker from each group takes the podium to defend their position. Finally, the government, through Michel Barnier, will respond to parliamentarians.
The regulations of the National Assembly provide that each of the eleven parliamentary groups “has a minimum time of ten minutes”. To these 110 minutes are added five other minutes planned for an MP not belonging to any group, and one time planned for the Prime Minister.
• After 6 p.m.: voting in the rooms of the National Assembly
It is therefore after more than two hours of debate, probably around 6:20 p.m., that Yaël Braun-Pivet, the president of the National Assembly, will invite the deputies to go and vote in the lounges of the Palais Bourbon.
Unlike votes on bills or proposed laws, motions of censure are not voted on in the hemicycle, but in nearby rooms. However, the vote is indeed “public”: a list of deputies who voted for the motion will be published on the National Assembly website in the minutes following the announcement of the results.
The deputies will first vote on the motion brought by the New Popular Front. Half an hour later, the session will resume in the hemicycle and Yaël Braun-Pivet will announce the results.
If the motion is not adopted, it will invite parliamentarians to vote in the rooms of the National Assembly for the second motion, that of the National Rally. But this should not be necessary: Marine Le Pen and her far-right colleagues have promised to vote for censorship. Unless there is a huge turnaround, Michel Barnier's government will fall this Wednesday, December 4, between 6:50 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
