The new Prime Minister proposed to parties outside LFI and RN to join the government during a meeting in Matignon this Thursday, December 19. But the method does not convince, including his own troops, who denounce negotiations “in a cupboard in the depths of a cellar”.
A summit meeting to get out of the rut. Less than a week after his appointment to Matignon, François Bayrou, already weakened politically since his presence Monday evening in the municipal council of Pau, invited all political parties, with the exception of LFI and the RN, to a major meeting YOU. With a message: ask them to join the government.
But the consultation, which looks like a last chance to succeed in broadening the forces of the presidential camp, arouses skepticism, including in the ranks of the presidential camp.
“François Bayrou is neither Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible nor the magician David Copperfield. Nobody believes for a moment that he can do it,” exclaims the former Renaissance deputy, François Vignal, very close to the head of state, from BFMTv.com
“Cuddle therapy for the last dinosaurs”
It must be said that the starting point does not bode well for a broad agreement between all political movements in the Assembly. By deciding to exclude the deputies RN Marine Le Pen, those of his ally Éric Ciotti and the rebellious Mathilde Panot, François Bayrou is in fact depriving himself of 211 deputies.
“The principle of a government of national unity is that everyone participates in it. Here, we are in a Macronist unity government. All of this is cuddle therapy for the last dinosaurs”, criticizes the rebellious deputy François Piquemal.
If François Bayrou landed in a government with the same contours as that of Michel Barnier with LR, Renaissance, Modem and Horizons, he would have 210 supporters in the Palais-Bourbon – far from the absolute majority set at 289.
“We are not at the end of the Second World War”
Also very far from previous governments of national unity. In 1926, Raymond Poincaré, then former President of the Republic, gathered around him very largely, from the republican federation marked on the right to the republican-socialist party with 442 deputies out of 522.
The maneuver allows the country to get its head above water, after a financial crisis which caused the franc to fall. Enough to last for 2 years. In 1934, it was Gaston Doumergue’s turn to bring together 456 deputies out of 607 around him, following riots which put an end to the government of Édouard Daladier.
In November 1945, Charles de Gaulle also launched a government of national unity which included all the colors of the political spectrum, a few months after the armistice signed with the Germans in a bloodless France.
“Each time, it is an exceptional crisis which justifies everyone coming around the table. The situation is certainly serious at the moment but we are not at the end of a war after all,” puts one into perspective. socialist deputy.
“And then, there has always been a project in these national unions. In 1945, it was the reconstruction of the French economy, the creation of social security. Today, we are not offered anything that would change life of the French”, still regrets this elected official.
“Very blurry”
Since his arrival at Matignon, François Bayrou has remained in the dark. During his first major oral presentation to the deputies, the Prime Minister did not give any concrete priorities.
“I will not leave the budgetary situation unanswered,” he simply replied on Tuesday.
But this Thursday, the head of government tried to mollify the left by putting pension reform back on the table. He proposed “resuming” the subject without suspending retirement at 64. A gesture which should not satisfy the socialists, who are calling for its suspension until the next presidential election.
At the risk of losing the votes of the right who defended the reform but also the macronie for whom this text will probably remain one of the only markers of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term?
“The conditions are not at all right to join his government if all this remains very vague. He must be able to convince. If we are already not sure of participating, imagine the others…”, for his part, says LR deputy Jean-Didier Berger.
“No illusions about what will come out of this”
If the right raises the stakes to keep its ten ministries and should very probably integrate the government of François Bayrou, would the socialists let go with the announcement of François Bayrou?
“We must give ourselves guarantees” on “priority subjects for the French” such as the end of the elimination of 4,000 positions in National Education or the return of the wealth tax, asked the socialist deputy Dieynaba before the meeting Diop.
“We are going to tell him again what we think is necessary to do so that the country does not sink,” says environmentalist senator Mélanie Vogel. “But we have no illusions about what will come out of this.”
“Negotiations in a cupboard deep in a cellar”
Suffice it to say that no one really believes in the possibility of a much broader government than that of Michel Barnier, including among his own troops.
“We seem to be carrying out negotiations in a cupboard in the depths of a cellar, without any transparency. It’s disastrous,” regrets a Modem MP who would have preferred another option.
“We should have brought together deputies from all groups on Friday in the same room and told them that we were not going out until we had agreed on 2 or 3 reforms, all with cameras of the press “All this would have made everyone face their responsibilities”, regrets the Macronist François Vignal.
The new Prime Minister gives satisfaction to 36% of French people, a rate significantly lower than that experienced by his three predecessors when they took office in Matignon, according to an Ifop poll for Sud Radio published on Thursday.
