Can we laugh at everything and with anyone? Situation. Entering the hemicycle this Monday afternoon March 20 to settle in his red and felted armchair, the leader of the Socialist deputies Boris Vallaud, the eye always mischievous, stops at the height of the few ministers already seated in the first row. There is the Secretary of State for Europe Laurence Boone, whom he knows well, and the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt, who no longer speaks to him, and vice versa. Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna is there, too.
Vallaud would like to salute them. Republican tradition. “I came to say goodbye to you, anyway,” he tells them. The little joke didn’t make them smile. Not at all, even. Finally, the government did not fall under the votes of the motion of censure, with nine small votes, but who knows how much longer Boris Vallaud will meet these faces on the bench of the members of the government?
A strong gesture. A turning point. An electric shock. Whatever the terms used by Emmanuel Macron’s troops since last Thursday, the observation is the same on all floors of the cracked liner: the course of things must change. “There will be a before and an after” 49.3, recognized in this regard Olivier Dussopt this weekend on BFMTV. The passage in force on the pension reform has shaken the French and their deputies; the result of the cross-partisan motion of censure carried by Charles de Courson has highlighted the increasingly slim margins for maneuver of the relative majority of the Head of State. The political crisis is brewing… But no one knows how to avoid it. “It’s the blur. The total blur. We navigate on sight and in the fog”, conceded a minister after the speech of Elisabeth Borne in front of the Assembly.
Sarkozy and the specter of an alliance with LR
How to govern in these conditions? Admittedly, the ten months that have just passed have not been marred only by failures, the executive succeeding on several occasions in finding allies according to the texts, that on the left, there – more frequently – on the right. But the days of Thursday 16 and Monday 20 March will leave traces that will be difficult to erase. For many, Emmanuel Macron’s strategy, based on momentary majorities, is nearing its end. “We are reaching the limit of our idea of a majority of projects”, breathes a Renaissance deputy. “We must acknowledge the failure of this strategy and find an alternative,” said another parliamentarian from the presidential party, elected since 2017.
Paradoxically, it was when Les Républicains were most opposed to the head of state that the idea of a coalition rebounded in Macronist minds. And not only: in recent days, Manuel Valls in a column published in Le Figaro and Rachida Dati on France Culture both pleaded for a “government agreement” between Emmanuel Macron and LR to circumvent the country’s political deadlock. The standard-bearer of this alliance is none other than a certain Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been pushing for this contract since the re-election of the Head of State. “The ball is not in the court of the president, it is up to the LRs to make a clarification”, we reply in the entourage of the tenant of the Elysée, where we recall that, by two times, he had opened his arms to this type of teamwork. The first time in June 2022, when Emmanuel Macron received party bosses to discuss the possibility of a government of national unity. The second time on France 2 last October, where he had wished “an alliance” in the Assembly between the majority, Les Républicains and the Liot group.
“We can imagine a new government contract on major reforms, starting with the budget, we must unite all the republican parties to obtain results and avoid a victory for Marine Le Pen in four years”, proclaims the deputy Renaissance Mathieu Lefèvre , close to Gérald Darmanin. A heavyweight in the government, who considers that there are not even “six good ministers in this team around the president”, pleads for a major reshuffle before the summer. And even openness. Broad, very broad: “I would not be shocked to see communist ministers join the government. We are close to them, on nuclear power, on industry. Their concern is the LFI line; it is the ours too.”
Emmanuel Macron must regain control
However, such a union must still be realizable. Other members of the government point to the weak reliability of LR executives and the lack of authority of their leaders. Are the Republicans just a united party, speaking with one voice? “Is Ciotti credible to come to see us and make a wedding list on behalf of everyone? We’re not going to do sixty individual coalition contracts! And then on what program? If it’s about doing something straight hard, we risk losing a lot of parliamentarians and voters at home…”, said one of them.
Even more than the operational considerations, it is also the message sent to the French that is debating. Several lines appear in the entourage of the Head of State, between those, like the Secretary General of the Elysée Alexis Kohler, who wish to continue the reform train in the purest Macronist DNA, and those who defend a form of temporization . “After 49.3, we must not give the impression that we are deciding alone to turn the page, in place of the unions, in place of the people, as if there was nothing more to say about pensions , slips another member of the government. We must not decide when they have the right to be angry and when they must stop being angry.
As always in the event of a crisis, all eyes, whether from the Assembly or the offices of the ministries, are directed towards the Élysée. There is at least a consensus in the majority in these hours full of uncertainties: Emmanuel Macron must regain control, and quickly, to explain where he wants to take the country. “There is a course and there is a method to give, whispers a minister. The course, normally Macron knows how to do, on the other hand the method… He does not like to make choices that do not depend on him. At the moment , he’s a bit of a hostage, and he hates that.” But does the head of state have any other choice than to do violence to himself?