François Hollande’s former Prime Minister back at Matignon? If Emmanuel Macron decides to make him head of government, he will only hold on if the far right abstains from voting for a motion of censure.
Negotiations continue. This Monday, September 2, the former Prime Minister of François Hollande, Bernard Cazeneuve, whose name is persistently circulating for the post of Prime Minister, was received by Emmanuel Macron in the morning. According to the entourage of the head of state, this meeting was part of the “continuation of consultations” for Matignon. So, would the solution to the political impasse be called Bernard Cazeneuve? Here is Emmanuel Macronincreasingly constrained, especially since the government pact which could have been envisaged between the centrists and the elected representatives of the Republican Right, the LR of Laurent Wauquiez, was rejected by the latter.
Bernard Cazeneuve had also said, very early on, on August 5, that he was ready to run for this position on LCI : “I have never refused to put wisdom where there is unreason. If it is necessary to do it collectively, I will always be ready.” He had assured that his main concern is that “the country does not fall into downgrading, into ungovernability.” Bernard Cazeneuve knows very well that he is a possible recourse. His name has been cited for several days by resigning ministers in the media. Gérald Darmanin, who still has the ear of the president, also considered that he would be a useful choice. “He is a respectable man. I once fought him but he is a great secular republican. We could very well discuss a coalition with a socialist like him,” he said on RMC August 27th.
Having heard this little tune, the former Prime Minister of François Hollande is preparing himself. He let it be known in Le Parisien that he was quite willing to return to Matignon immediately. “He really wants to because he feels he is up to the challenge and because he is aware that he is the only one who can resolve the situation,” declared a parliamentarian who had lunch with him, to Le Parisien. The entourage of the President of the Republic, contacted by the newspaper, clearly believes that he has “become a serious hypothesis that seems to be consolidating a little more each day.”
The fact remains that Bernard Cazeneuve would set his conditions to the President of the Republic, a man he knows well for having been a minister in the same government, under François Hollande, but whom he has little respect for. If he is appointed, he intends to implement “a real, credible left-wing policy” as well as a “real cohabitation with Emmanuel Macron”. Take it or leave it.
If he resigns himself to it, the head of state knows that Bernard Cazeneuve would tick a lot of boxes. First of all because he knows Matignon very well having occupied the place under François Hollande (December 2016 to May 2017), succeeding Manuel Valls. A considerable asset to be operational immediately. Bernard Cazeneuve had previously held several positions in the government: European Affairs, Budget and then the Interior. He notably faced the 2015 attacks in Paris. An experience that counts.
The Elysée, centrist deputies and part of the right are also sensitive to his fierce opposition to LFI. He has never hidden his aversion to Jean-Luc Mélenchon and had deplored the presence of La France insoumise in the New Popular Front. He also left the PS after the agreement between the PS and LFI for the 2022 legislative elections.
Le Pen arbiter of Macron’s choice?
Bernard Cazeneuve faces a considerable obstacle in the prospect of an appointment: the New Popular Front has remained united so far and remains on the line of a motion of censure or a rejection of any Prime Minister who does not implement a left-wing policy. The head of state had undoubtedly let the hypothesis of his appointment leak in order to take the pulse and observe whether the NFP parties would fracture over the scenario of a centre-left man appointed to Matignon.
Result: the 4 parties of the NFP are resisting disunity for the moment. LFI promises censure, the ecologists have made it known that the NFP line will be held and that they will do the same. It is also likely that the communists will vote for censure. And even if the PS deputies, the most inclined to accept a coalition with a social democrat at its head, were about forty not to vote for a motion (out of 66 deputies), the support of the Assembly for Bernard Cazeneuve would be extremely fragile, even if the whole of the center and the right support him.
If we do the precise calculations, it is even very clear: Bernard Cazeneuve would not resist a motion of censure, unless the RN and Ciottist groups decide not to vote for it. In other words, Bernard Cazeneuve’s fate would be in the hands of the president of the RN group, who holds the line of her party and its allies in the Assembly: Marine Le Pen. This is to say that Emmanuel Macron could be cooled by the idea. Hadn’t he assured that he would only appoint a Prime Minister if the latter was able to guarantee institutional stability?