The conference of group presidents in the Assembly set Wednesday 4 p.m. for the examination of the motions of censure tabled by the left and the RN. That of the left, which will be voted on first, has every chance of being adopted since the RN has announced its support. By adding their votes, the left and the RN can gather around 330 votes, well beyond the 288 required.
Barnier did not think that Marine Le Pen would “dare” censorship
“Black hole”
“We probably could have sometimes done better. But today it is your responsibility to send this country into a black hole,” said government spokesperson Maud Bregeon to the deputies, in unison with the ministers who , in the media, have increased calls for “responsibility”.
“Do we really want chaos? Do we want an economic crisis which will affect the most vulnerable?” warned the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau, even making “the bet that with Michel Barnier, we will succeed in dismissing the motion of censure.”
But for the leader of the rebellious deputies Mathilde Panot, “the fall of Barnier is established”.
Appointed on September 5, he will have lasted three months thanks to the “support without participation of the RN” and, “what will bring him down is precisely that the RN will have stopped supporting him”, underlined the PS deputy Arthur Delaporte.
On Monday, the Prime Minister unsurprisingly took responsibility for his government on the Social Security financing bill (PLFSS), ensuring that he had been “at the end of the dialogue” with political groups, including the National Rally.
Budget: Barnier commits government responsibility in France through 49.3
“Without a plan behind it”
The gestures announced by Michel Barnier to respond to the demands of the flame party will not, however, have been enough: “Censoring this budget is, unfortunately, the only way the Constitution gives us to protect the French from a dangerous, unjust and punitive”, Marine Le Pen justified on Tuesday on X.
“I didn’t believe she would dare,” said the Prime Minister on Monday after a telephone conversation with the leader of the RN deputies who was determined to vote for censure despite the multiple concessions obtained, a group president of the bloc said on Tuesday. central.
“It is the RN which has obtained the most political gains”, but Ms Le Pen “prefers to sacrifice them on the backs of the French” and “without a plan behind”, deplores those in Mr Barnier’s entourage . She has “a personal agenda”, adds the same source, in an allusion to the trial of RN assistants in the European Parliament, where Marine Le Pen risks ineligibility.
The adoption of such a motion would be a first since the overthrow of the government of Georges Pompidou in 1962. The Barnier government would then become the shortest in the history of the Fifth Republic.
If the executive falls, France would sink further into the political crisis created by Emmanuel Macron’s dissolution of the National Assembly in June.
France: censorship “is not inevitable” if Barnier agrees to negotiate, says Le Pen
Speculations
On the financial markets, the interest rates at which France borrows have tightened in the face of uncertainties. But the Paris Stock Exchange was moving higher on Tuesday, with investors focusing for the moment on the advantages of a budgetary status quo in the event of censorship.
The Élysée made no comment on the new political situation, while Emmanuel Macron is in Riyadh for a three-day state visit. But it is the head of state who will quickly have control because, if the scenario of censorship is confirmed, he will have to appoint a new Prime Minister.
Speculation is already rife about potential successors to Michel Barnier, from Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu to the centrist François Bayrou in the presidential camp.
However, the equation remains the same in the Assembly: no configuration seems to promise a majority to pass a budget for 2025.
The first secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, called on Emmanuel Macron to appoint a “left-wing Prime Minister” but open “to compromise” with the central bloc, saying he was ready to take responsibility for Matignon and rejecting calls for resignation of the Head of State launched by Jean-Luc-Mélenchon.
