The “common base” in the post-Barnier impasse

It almost feels like we're back in July, minus the heat. In the corridors of the National Assembly, the leaders of the former presidential majority took out their summer battle plan to find a replacement for Michel Barnier. As during the cycle of consultations started at the Elysée by Emmanuel Macron four months earlier to find a prime minister, the scenario of a « coalition » bringing together the forces of “the republican arch” is back. With always the same aspiration to separate the Socialist Party (PS) and Les Ecologistes from their ally La France insoumise.

“The solution of a right-wing prime minister is now sold out”wants to believe the Renaissance deputy for Val-de-Marne Guillaume Gouffier Valente, close to former Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne. By his failure to pass a budget by negotiating with the National Rally (RN), Michel Barnier would have provided proof that no right-wing prime minister can count on the hypothesis of non-censorship by Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right party.

This observation is shared by the president of the Ensemble pour la République (EPR, which brings together Renaissance deputies), Gabriel Attal. If he called on Tuesday, December 3, in a group meeting, for his deputies to denounce “until the last second” “the irresponsibility of the RN and the PS”he is nonetheless counting on the latter to get out of the impasse, he explains privately, betting “on the fact that the socialists will be under pressure from their electorate”.

“Edit the equation”

Without any illusions about the result of the motion of censure, the former prime minister intends to draw lessons from the announced fall of his successor to “edit the equation” policy on which the future government will be based. Thus, only one “non-censorship agreement” going from the PS to the Les Républicains (LR) party, via the three groups of the former presidential majority (EPR, Horizons and MoDem), would prevent the next government from being “the hostage of the RN”reasons the elected official from Hauts-de-Seine.

Gabriel Attal believes that the future prime minister “must not come from the central block”, but also that the groups of this “new base » must be represented within the future government. To guide them, a course that would hold “three or four points”with the commitment to renounce any major reform. THE « irritants » – such as subjects linked to immigration or pension reform – would be expunged from the roadmap with the objective of “hold institutionally until summer 2025 “. Date on which Emmanuel Macron would again have the possibility of calling new early legislative elections.

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