Michel Barnier is playing his all-out role this week. While the National Rally threatens more and more openly to censor the government, the Prime Minister will receive the heads of parliamentary groups at Matignon, starting with Marine Le Pen this Monday morning.
Above all, the week promises to be particularly busy and risky for the executive. On Tuesday, the National Assembly will debate and vote on the treaty with Mercosur, against a backdrop of farmers' anger. And on Thursday, a tense debate is announced in the hemicycle as part of a “niche” of La France insoumise on the repeal of the pension reform.
The 49.3 is looming
But it is on the budgetary level that the clouds are gathering over Matignon, the prospect of a triggering of article 49.3 fast approaching. In the absence of a majority in the Assembly, Michel Barnier will “probably” use this constitutional weapon in the coming weeks, which allows the adoption of a text without a vote, unless a motion of censure overthrows it. Which would suppose that the RN adds its votes to a motion tabled by the left.
This “coalition of opposites”, “I know that it is not what the French want, who today want stability, serenity”, said the Prime Minister on Thursday. Like Emmanuel Macron who from Argentina also declared that he wanted “stability”.
But according to an Ipsos survey for La Tribune Sunday53% of French people want to see the government fall. And Michel Barnier's rating falls in another Ifop poll for the JDDat 36% compared to 45% when he was appointed in early September.
The long list of grievances of the RN
The pressure is therefore at its peak for the tenant of Matignon. While waiting for the interview this Monday morning, “Michel Barnier creates the conditions for censorship,” warned the vice-president of the RN Sébastien Chenu. And the RN lists its grievances: revaluation of pensions, tax on electricity, “increase in France's contribution to the European Union”, or even the absence of savings on “the State's millefeuille” and “on immigration”…
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Three budgetary texts are likely to be submitted to 49.3: the Social Security budget, that of the State for 2025 and finally the Finance bill at the end of management for 2024.
To discuss it, Monday, after Marine Le Pen, Michel Barnier will receive Stéphane Lenormand (Liot), Éric Ciotti (UDR) then Mathilde Panot (LFI), who intends to repeat to him “that he has no democratic legitimacy”. The Prime Minister will also see the socialists Boris Vallaud and Patrick Kanner and the ecologists Cyrielle Chatelain and Guillaume Gontard on Wednesday, then the communists André Chassaigne and Cécile Cukierman on Thursday. Those responsible for the “common base” (LR, Renaissance/EPR, MoDem, Horizons) will be received together on Tuesday, like every week. In a few days, the Prime Minister will therefore have a good estimate of the real weight of the sword of Damocles.
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