nothing is going well at Nupes – L’Express

Many have repeated it – especially its detractors on the left – Nupes is not a political group. The fact remains that the intellectual property of the thing has been snatched away since the first hours of its existence… And even more so today, when the pressure on Jean-Luc Mélenchon is growing stronger and some , including at LFI, have the desire to exfiltrate it, willingly or by force. Return to May 2022: in the middle of negotiations between the left-wing parties, at the headquarters of La France insoumise, the historic treasurer of candidate Mélenchon, Marie-Pierre Oprandi, rushes to the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) to place the famous V-shaped rainbow logo there. Enough to anger – already – the allies of the Nupes, and in particular the environmentalists at the time. “They wanted to be stupid, we showed that we could be even more stupid,” says an environmentalist. Julien Bayou, then boss of EELV, went to the INPI in September to register… the “Nupes” brand, now owned by environmentalists. Nothing to reassure the latter, nor the socialists and even less the Rebels. “All the deputies are fed up with Mélenchon, not necessarily with Nupes. But in people’s heads, Nupes = LFI = Mélenchon. It’s terrible, but that’s how it is. The popularity of Nupes is now indexed on the hatred of LFI”, laments an environmentalist leader. At least, Mélenchon will no longer be able to (legally) say: “Nupes is me!”

Crossed at the European campus of Renaissance in Bordeaux, François Patriat, boss of the Macronist senators, had a big, very big problem. “The leading party in the Senate now is BATR! Do you know? Eat All the Racks!” The tone is set. The Burgundian elected official did not at all appreciate the transfer window at the Palais du Luxembourg and the poaching attempts, in particular from his little comrades in the majority, including Horizons via Claude Malhuret’s group. “It’s appalling! It’s not methods! Politics is not a game, I never called anyone to tell them that they would see Macron once a week if they joined in. Everyone had the word: let the Patriat group collapse!” For François Patriat, it’s clear: we have the same jersey (and again…), but we don’t have the same passion.

Ah, how far gone are the days when Gérald Darmanin was Minister of Action and Public Accounts, where he kept a close eye on the good health of the country’s budget by calming the spending passions of members of the government. In the corridors of Bercy, people are having fun: since the turbulent northerner has been at the Interior, he has forgotten his good old principles and adopted the bad habit of demanding ever more money from the guardians of the safe. “The budget is clearly no longer his subject, he is a big spender!”, complains one of his colleagues.

When François Hollande learned that Emmanuel Macron was receiving party leaders at lunchtime this Thursday to provide them with an update on the international situation and the unprecedented attack by Hamas in Israel, he struggled to conceal his astonishment. “It’s not normally done like that, this kind of meeting is done bilaterally, with texts to rely on,” lamented the former president in a small group, before criticizing his successor and his tendency to dissect geographical maps for several hours in front of the bosses of the different political groups as he had already done at the start of the war in Ukraine.

As for the announcements made by Emmanuel Macron (on the number of children among the missing French people), they accentuated the embarrassment of François Hollande, the latter considering that it was strange to give the first scoop of this information to party bosses.

On paper, everything is fine. The right displays a united face on the immigration issue: it has tabled two texts and is opposed to the regularization of illegal immigrants exercising a profession in shortage, a measure provided for in the government bill. The text is expected in the Senate, where the right has a majority, at the beginning of November. This is where it gets complicated. The boss of senators LR Bruno Retailleau and his counterpart in the Assembly Olivier Marleix displayed their strategic differences Tuesday during a strategic council of the party. The Vendéen wishes to rewrite the government version in order to send a muscular text to the Assembly. “Retaileau knows that he has the means to pass a right-wing text despite the centrists,” summarizes a close friend.

Olivier Marleix would like the Senate to reject the text altogether. No compromise with an executive incapable of regulating flows! The idea is to disrupt the government’s schedule, or even make it stop tabling the text in the National Assembly. On the right, we have a political reading of this positioning. Olivier Marleix manages a collective of 62 very independent deputies and has undertaken to table a motion of censure if the executive were to adopt a “lax” bill by 49.3. It takes 58 signatories to take action. “Marleix fears that a motion of censure will not be supported by the entire group, and that we will return to internal tensions like during retreats,” judges a senior LR leader. “And if it is passed and there is a dissolution, the right will be bothered with new legislation,” adds an advisor.