The National Assembly has become a veritable cauldron in recent months with the only relative majority available to President Macron. It hadn’t happened since 1988. Has the so-called lower house of the French Parliament become the new nerve center of power? The next few weeks are going to be hectic there.
In recent months, the Assembly has taken on unprecedented importance in the recent history of the fifth republic. The President of the Republic no longer has an absolute majority. The government must therefore constantly seek allies in other political groups to pass its texts.
And sometimes it gets stuck, as we saw with the budget texts at the end of the fall: no fewer than ten 49.3s were used by the Prime Minister. Ten passages in force of the government. Add to that the strong representation of the extremes in the hemicycle, the National Rally and La France insoumise, and you get often stormy sessions and texts whose final outcome is more and more often uncertain.
Pensions: forging an alliance with Les Républicains
On the pension reform, the ambition of the government is to avoid a new passage in force. He will have to forge alliances, but not with the left or the extreme right. The Nupes and the National Rally are fiercely opposed to the postponement of the legal retirement age. The government will turn to the Republicans who are playing their credibility on this reform and could vote for the text in exchange for a few gestures from the executive. The abandonment of special schemes, the revaluation of small pensions or even a device for mothers of families with chopped careers. In short, these negotiations with the deputies will undoubtedly have consequences on the color of the final text. A Renaissance MP summarizes: “ We are no longer here to make up the numbers. The Assembly, which only serves as a cash register for the government, is over! »
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The hazardous hypothesis of a dissolution
But Emmanuel Macron remains master in his kingdom. The institutions of the Fifth Republic notably gave the Head of State a lethal weapon: dissolution. Clearly, Emmanuel Macron can decide at any time, if he finds himself blocked in his action, to call new legislative elections. But it’s very risky. Both for the president who has no assurance of seeing his majority reinforced and for the deputies who may lose their seats in the event of a new election. In short, the Assembly has again become the place where the law is written. And Emmanuel Macron will have to deal with it.
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