After the time for “clarifications”, that of “reconfiguration”. At the beginning of the week, the five repudiated Insoumis took up the pen in a joint letter addressed this Tuesday, July 9, to the outgoing bosses of the communist and ecologist groups. “As you know, the rupture between us and La France insoumise is complete. We will not sit in the ‘insoumis’ group”, write François Ruffin and Clémentine Autain, as well as the outgoing LFI deputies who were not reinvested Danielle Simonnet, Alexis Corbière and Hendrik Davi.
Thus, these new free electrons are calling for the creation of a “new group”, bringing together environmentalists, communists as well as members of Générations.s, the party founded by Benoît Hamon in the aftermath of the 2017 presidential election, which managed to elect six parliamentarians on Sunday evening following the second round of early legislative elections.
Because five deputies are not enough to form a parliamentary group: there must be at least 15. An important threshold, because the left-behinds – the “non-registered”, according to the nomenclature of 33 Quai d’Orsay – see their political weight reduced to nothing in the hemicycle. Isolation, meager financial means and limited speaking time… One evening in June 2018, did not Jean Lassalle, then a deputy, storm against this status that he equated with that of “sub-deputies”?
On the importance of sitting in a group
Excessive? Perhaps. The fact remains that belonging to a parliamentary group offers a certain number of advantages. Starting with the crux of the matter: money. The lower house provides parliamentary groups with an envelope of some 10 million euros, allocated taking into account the number of members in each group. This allocation allows them to cover a number of expenses, such as renting office space, advertising costs, and printing various publications.
Through their president, the groups can also participate in the organization of the debates. But also request a public vote or even a suspension of the session.
Proportional representation also allows them to place pawns within the standing committees – depending on the number of seats obtained at the end of the vote. With possible bonuses at stake for those who claim to be in the opposition. The possibility, for example, of snatching the head of the highly coveted presidency of the Finance Committee or one of the three seats of the quaestorship, an honorary position which consists of managing all the administrative and financial questions of the Assembly. At the beginning of the 16th legislature, for example, the opposition groups held 10 out of 22 positions (four of the six vice-presidencies, one of the three quaestor positions and five of the 12 secretary positions).
But the result of these early legislative elections does not allow a clear boundary to be drawn between the majority and the opposition, with 193 deputies from the New Popular Front (NFP), 165 from the presidential coalition, and 143 from the National Rally (RN). Unless a coalition manages to emerge by July 20, the date of the distribution of these strategic functions. Another difficulty, however, is the internal composition of the groups, whose architecture risks being significantly modified by the vote.
Explosion of groups
The rebels will thus be amputated from the five rebels, self-proclaimed “insurgents”. In the Socialist Party, where Boris Vallaud was re-elected group president shortly after 3 p.m. this Wednesday, several voices are being raised in favor of integrating the left wing of Macronie. In the wake of the first magistrate of Nantes Johanna Rolland, Carole Delga extended her hand Wednesday morning “to a part of Renaissance”, on condition that they agree to support “a left-wing program”.
A nod that could seduce more in the presidential camp. Elected for the first time as a member of parliament in Pas-de-Calais, the Minister Delegate for Agriculture, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, has already said that she would oppose the reform of unemployment insurance. A “freedom” that she boasts of having “won with this election”. The incarnation of the left wing of Macronism in the Assembly, Sacha Houlié is working on the creation of a new “social democratic” group.
This child of the pink party, who converted to “at the same time” in 2017, is making the President of the Republic pay a high price for a decision to dissolve that he considers “absurd”, by slamming the door on Renaissance this Wednesday.
The Republicans: coalition, not coalition…
And everything suggests that he could find imitators. Particularly among those whose aspirations differ from those of some of the majority’s leading figures. Because Gérald Darmanin, who is preparing to swap Place Beauvau for the Assembly, is arguing for an alliance with Les Républicains. The same goes for the Minister for Equality between Women and Men, Aurore Bergé, whose first steps in politics were taken in the offices of the UMP. Getting into bed with their right-wing neighbours? A red line for elected officials and ministers from the left who are already announcing an imminent secession in the event of an agreement with Rue de Vaugirard, where the violins are not necessarily better tuned.
Now a member of parliament for Haute-Loire, Laurent Wauquiez took the reins of a group this Wednesday afternoon “whose elected representatives will have to choose between three camps. Could some of them ultimately join “A droite!”, the group of Eric Ciotti, the president excluded from his party for having signed a Faustian pact with the RN? Will they prefer the independence of the LR, dear to Laurent Wauquiez who renamed the group “Droite républicaine”? Or will they resign themselves to clinging to the Macronist locomotive advocated by Xavier Bertrand and Bruno Retailleau to counter the arrival of the left at Matignon? The same leader of the Republican senators for whom the LR brand has fallen into disuse. Like, it seems, the balance of power and the components that had until now shaped the French political landscape.