between Macronie and the opposition, six days of smoke and betrayals – L’Express

It’s the story of a bluff. A series of little lies which plunge the executive into an unprecedented crisis since the legislative elections of June 2022. It is the story of political and personal vexations. The kind that pushes an indocile partner to give up his thumb against a Minister of the Interior who is decidedly too sure of himself. It is the story, finally, of a convergence of interests against a government – and a president – who is so unpopular. The National Assembly adopted this Monday, to everyone’s surprise, the rejection motion, a rout for the executive. The left, The Republicans (LR) and the National Rally (RN) joined their votes to rule out a text with an uncertain future.

Perhaps the majority should have listened to Franck Riester. The Minister for Relations with Parliament knows how much the words of the extreme right only bind those who believe them. In the midst of examining the Social Security financing bill, RN deputy Sébastien Chenu assured him one lunchtime that his troops would not vote for the rejection motion defended by the left. A few hours later, they voted for it. Premonitory. This Monday, the Assembly was the scene of a political murder. As in The crime of the Orient Express, there is not just one culprit. Everyone went with their own knife.

This December 1st, Olivier Marleix exchanges with Éric Ciotti. The boss of the deputies (LR) submits an idea to the party boss. What if the right filed a motion to reject Darmanin’s text, expected a few days later in a public session? This would be a good lesson given to the Minister of the Interior, guilty of having consented to the unraveling of the text by the Law Commission of the Assembly after the Senate’s turn of the screw. Guilty also of a historic betrayal in 2017 in the eyes of the right, a betrayal never digested and which the LR still dream of making him pay for. So, on this first day of Advent, Éric Ciotti acquiesces, but leaves Olivier Marleix in the front line.

The member for Eure-et-Loir is therefore participating in a draw with LFI and the environmentalists, with only one motion being able to be defended. Lost ! The environmentalists win this parliamentary lottery, their deputy Benjamin Lucas will defend the motion. Should we support the environmentalist? The demons of division are catching up with the right, a group meeting organized on December 7 highlights internal fractures. Olivier Marleix is ​​for, his first vice-president Michèle Tabarot is against, Éric Ciotti remains in the background. “If we are disunited, it is better not to do it,” he tells his people. The boss of the LR group is criticized for a personal initiative, many LR deputies learned of the tabling of the motion in the press. The Republicans are tripping over each other, a classic. Yet…

Quietly, things are moving. Environmentalists measure the susceptibility of the right, whose votes they want. This Friday, December 8, the boss of the environmental group Cyrielle Chatelain calls Olivier Marleix on the phone. She found his number thanks to the socialist Boris Vallaud. The MP questions him about his elusive group. Marleix depicts a collective made up of 62 self-employed people but reaffirms his desire to prevent the immigration text. The day before, Benjamin Lucas met LR number 3, Annie Genevard, at the Assembly. He promises to refrain from any unnecessary provocation towards the right when he defends his motion. “I’ll try to be subtle. As you can imagine, I can be subtle,” he smiles. “I don’t doubt anything,” she replies.

We tell you, the right is susceptible. This December 7, LR deputies defend their proposed constitutional law on immigration (PPLC) during their parliamentary niche. They know that their text has no chance of prospering. Losing is one thing, feeling humiliated is another. In the hemicycle, Gérald Darmanin lets the debates drag on and multiplies the barbs towards the right. Éric Ciotti hardly appreciates the attitude of the minister, who appears the next day in the company of the mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi, his close enemy. The tenant of Beauvau even mentions the responsibility of the right in the event of a crime committed by a foreigner covered by the law, if the text were not to be adopted. “He put our heads in the m…”, says an LR deputy. An executive analyzes: “We have two Darmanin: the Darmanin on the phone, enveloping and caressing. And the Darmanin in the hemicycle, who needs to throw scuds in the face, that’s his weakness.” The tension rises, Beauvau mentions between the lines the need for a return to the polls in the event of an absence of a majority on the text.

Monday December 11, voting day. All eyes are on the RN. Its elected officials, silent as tombs, are harassed. Sébastien Chenu doesn’t even have time to sit down. The RN vice-president of the Assembly had barely walked through the door of a restaurant when Sophie de Menthon threw herself at him. The president of the Ethic movement, also occasional advisor to Marine Le Pen, cannot wait any longer. “So? You will vote for it? You must vote for it!” Sébastien Chenu ends up finding a seat. His phone rings. “Apparently, everyone is suspended from your group meeting,” simpers a minister in writing. Vice-President RN barely blushed. “We will see what we do, but in any case the motion will not pass.” The screen lights up again. This is Naïma Moutchou, the Horizons MP. “Can we meet 5 minutes before 3 p.m.?”

Time is a strategist. A lying poker is developing between the right and the RN. The far-right party holds a meeting at 3:30 p.m. to decide on its strategy. Finally, receive orders from Marine Le Pen. The boss gives her thumbs down in front of her flock. “Ok, we are depriving ourselves of a debate, but the media largely allows us to explain our position on immigration, assures a deputy from the South. And then it allows us to prevent Darmanin from doing his show for three weeks. I am quite seduced by the idea of ​​making him shut up, he who has been acting smart for weeks.” An hour later, the LR deputies enter a meeting. Many people know the decision taken by Marine Le Pen. Be careful not to be accused of being a crutch for macronism again! A vote is organized, a clear majority of deputies vote in favor of the motion. “We are the auxiliaries of the RN. It drives me crazy,” laments an elected official.

The guillotine is in place. All that remains is to activate it. At 5:41 p.m., the ax fell. The motion was adopted by 270 votes to 265. “Well, there you go,” slips Gérald Darmanin to Sacha Houlié, seated to his right, a few seconds after the announcement of the result of the vote. One of the minister’s friends squeaks: “That’s good, it frees him the next 15 days to go drink buckets.” Cries of joy resound in the Assembly. The right, united, paid off the hated minister. The RN achieved a new political blow, and the left dealt an almost fatal blow to the immigration text. Within the executive, we are fuming. As soon as the results are announced, parliamentary advisers relay to their ministers the names of the majority deputies absent during the vote. A few missing voices, nine to be exact, changed the course of history.

Barely more than a month ago, a full-time minister seemed impatient to see the Immigration law end its course on the precipice: “It is in our interest that the text is rejected in the Senate and that we leave it alone. get rid of it, it has only brought us problems for a year. What have we gained on this subject? Are we considered more credible, more effective? Will the law change that?” His wish was granted… A handful of weeks later. “It’s a disaster. An industrial accident, deplores a member of the government in the minutes following the result of the vote in the hemicycle. This Assembly is unmanageable, it’s like the Titanic, without the violins but with a fanfare. “

And now ? On a legal level, the game is not over. The text must return to the Senate, unless the government convenes a Joint Commission (CMP) to find a compromise between deputies and senators. After the vote, Macronist parliamentarians organize an exceptional group meeting to tune their violins. A fairly broad consensus among Renaissance deputies is emerging for Gérald Darmanin’s text to continue its journey in the Joint Committee, even if it is debated in the version that came out of the Senate. Hardened, then. The minister limits himself to saying that the text “will continue”. But on a political level, has mass not been said? An executive from the group, resigned: “This text is dead. It is cursed.”