Barnier government threatened with a motion of censure: is Lucie Castets still best placed on the left for the post of Prime Minister?

Michel Barnier’s government is counting its hours. After the Prime Minister’s forceful passage on the Social Security budget with the use of 49.3, La France insoumise and the National Rally announced that they would table motions of censure. The outcome, which will be known this Wednesday afternoon, leaves little doubt: the Barnier government should fall…

And again, since the President of the Republic will have to name the next tenant of the Matignon hotel, three months after Gabriel Attal handed over to Michel Barnier.

If this is the case, who could succeed the man who would become the most short-lived Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic?

Barnier after many negotiations

Last summer, the shadow of Lucie Castets hung over Matignon for many weeks, obscuring the names of other Prime Ministers such as Bernard Cazeneuve, Thierry Beaudet, David Lisnard and Xavier Bertrand. But rumors from the corridors, announcing a possible appointment of an LR Prime Minister, had automatically ruled out the candidate of the New Popular Front.

Some sources even claimed that Emmanuel Macron would have refused to appoint the candidate because a government led by the NFP risked repealing the pension reform, increasing the minimum wage to 1,600 euros, and panicking the financial markets.

Since then, Lucie Castets, who had given up her duties as director of finance at the City of Paris to carry the torch of the NFP, for whom she announced that she was working on a voluntary basis, has kept a low profile. What followed was the slow fragmentation of the group, with the Socialist Party and La France insoumise now playing a game of cat and mouse.

Does a New Popular Front still exist? If so, it is difficult to imagine Madame Castets being acclaimed in the event of the fall of the Barnier government.

The presidential election on the horizon

Furthermore, the latter still seemed to have turned the page on Matignon, since she is already pointing the finger at the Elysée. According to her announcement last Sunday, in which with Marine Tondelier, she called for a joint candidacy from the left for the next presidential election. “Without placing this or that name as a prerequisite for collective work,” said the two female politicians.

For the president of the LFI group in the National Assembly, Mathilde Panot, there is no doubt: Lucie Castets remains the NFP candidate.

This Tuesday, December 3, however, the latter reopened the way for a possible ascent to Matignon. On Franceinfo, she says she is “prepared to govern with the forces of the New Popular Front and with civil society leaders who have a lot to contribute in terms of reflection on the public policy to be pursued”.

“If it appears that someone is more suited and in a better position to play this role as Prime Minister, I will not make it a personal matter,” she stressed.

In the best scenario for the NFP, which would lead Castets to govern, we must not forget the warning of the National Rally, which promised that it will not accept that the NFP takes “a place it does not deserve” . After her meeting with Michel Barnier on November 25, Marine Le Pen, the president of the National Rally group in the National Assembly, stated: “Any NFP government would be likely to find itself thwarted by the National Rally.”