Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Without a clear parliamentary majority, Macron is in uncharted territory

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Cole Hanson
Cole Hanson
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(PARIS) Less than two months after his re-election, French President Emmanuel Macron found himself deprived of an absolute majority in the National Assembly on Monday, a virtually unprecedented situation opening a period of uncertainty and instability.

Posted at 6:19 am

Salim Sahib Ataba from Agence France-Presse, the Politics Department
France media agency

The second round of legislative elections on Sunday ended, according to the editorials, with a “slap” or “slap” for Mr Macron, whose coalition holds just 245 of the 577 seats in the National Assembly, far from an absolute majority. 289.

The vote was marked above all by the unprecedented penetration of the far-right of Marine Le Pen, her opponent in the second round of the presidential election, with 89 deputies and the revival of the leftist coalition led by the Radical Left Platform. Jean-Luc Melenchon, who was elected 131 deputies.

But the classic right-wing party, Les Républicains (LR), resisted it, with 61 deputies, who could find themselves in the position of government, and with whom the presidential camp reached out on Sunday evening.

After the results were announced, Prime Minister Elizabeth Bourne declared, “From tomorrow (Monday, editor’s note) we will be working to build a majority of the move,” saying that “there is no substitute for this gathering to ensure stability.”

“We will always find that we are trying to join us, to persuade the moderates in this parliament, above all, to follow us,” government spokeswoman Olivia Gregoire said Monday morning on Radio International.

“It will take imagination, daring and openness where that will be necessary” and “for everyone who wants to move the country forward,” she added.

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Loom movement blame

Concretely, either Emmanuel Macron’s coalition can succeed in concluding a government agreement with other parties, like what happened in Germany, or negotiate texts that it wants to adopt on an ad hoc basis, to fill the missing 44 seats to reach an absolute majority. .

This composition places Parliament at the center of the political game, the first in the era of the Fifth Republic, a presidential system created in 1958 precisely to avoid the instability of the parliamentary system that represented the Fourth Republic (1946-1958).

If the idea of ​​a government agreement raised by some leaders of the right is rejected by the leadership of the Democratic Left Party, the debate may be reopened within the party, which has vowed not to engage in systematic obstruction.

“We have campaigned in the opposition, we are in the opposition, we will remain in the opposition,” said party leader Christian Jacob.

The party’s general secretary, Aurelien Brady, also indicated Monday morning that he would not vote for the censure motion that Mr. Melenchon’s formation wants to submit once Mr. Melenchon has submitted.I The station scheduled for July 5 to overthrow the government.

“There is no doubt, for my part, that I am voting for a joint government project with La France insoumise,” (LFI) said on the Franceinfo website. “I do not feel the same republican values, and I do not feel the same project for the future of our country,” he explained.

Redesign on the horizon

On the other hand, Manuel Bombard, one of the leaders of the LFI, said, “MI You must leave Bourne.” “The government as formed by Emmanuel Macron cannot continue to rule as if nothing had happened,” he said on BFMTV on Monday.

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The government formed on May 20 should at least be seriously reformed, especially due to the defeat at the ballot box of three of its members, including the ministers of environmental transformation and health.

Elizabeth Bourne “Too weak to be able to stay in Matignon. There is a critical choice of prime minister to make that allows for political continuity and political stability that would not exist today,” said Lewis Elliott, leader of the National Rally (RN) led by M.I the pen.

Regarding France Inter, Mr Aliot spoke, “given the difficulties the country is facing, with the anger of a certain number” of the French people, in favor of “a government of national unity to prepare big deadlines in terms of purchasing power and security. or pensions”, but said that He doesn’t think Mr Macron will go down that road.

The Left-National Front coalition is already competing for the strategic presidency of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly, which since 2007 has been transferred to the first opposition group.

Representatives’ mandate does not officially begin until Wednesday.

Meanwhile, newly elected officials, including high-profile political upstarts like Rachel Keke, a former chambermaid who became a left-wing deputy, must show up to register and pick up their deputy’s bag containing a tricolor sash.

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