The time has come to choose a new face for Matignon. And it seems that Emmanuel Macron will be forced to compromise with the preferences of the National Rally (RN) if he wishes to protect his next Prime Minister from censure. And for good reason, with its 126 deputies at the Palais Bourbon, allied with the 16 elected representatives of Eric Ciotti, the RN group has what it takes to establish itself as a pivotal force. Unsurprisingly, however, the favorites of the “master of clocks” to succeed Gabriel Attal do not have the favor of the party with the flame.
Xavier Bertrand? “Insulting and outrageous towards the RN”. What about Bernard Cazeneuve in this case? No. Marine Le Pen “does not want a left-wing government”. And why not Thierry Beaudet, the president of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE)? Never. “His rare political positions have been against the RN”. Thus, any government led by one of the three candidates for Matignon would be immediately censored by the RN, Jordan Bardella’s entourage confirmed to AFP on Tuesday, September 3.
Harmonize the RN position
But then, what architecture should the next government adopt to avoid obstruction by the National Front deputies? At the end of the morning, the RN presidency set two conditions for the absence of its vote on a motion of censure. First, the future executive must be “technical”. A notion borrowed from our transalpine neighbours, familiar with governments whose ministerial portfolios are distributed to a majority of senior civil servants. Second, the new government must commit to “implementing proportional representation” as a voting method for legislative elections before a probable new dissolution next June.
Although not exhaustive, this specification has the merit of homogenizing the communication on the strategy envisaged by the far-right party, somewhat illegible since the second round of the legislative elections. After the arrival in the lead of the New Popular Front on July 7, the RN executives have contradicted themselves on numerous occasions on the direction to follow following the appointment of Gabriel Attal’s successor. First there were the first warnings, with a first veto placed against a government composed of at least one member from the ranks of La France Insoumise (LFI).
Some have even suggested that the absence of Insoumis constituted the only criterion of “non-censorability”. This is the case of the secretary general of the group Renaud Labaye indicating to the Figaro that his deputies will not censor [ient] not” a potential left-wing government if it proposed “consensual measures”. Confidences that the honorary president of the RN was nevertheless quick to correct. “There is one thing that is certain: the RN group will censor any government where LFI and environmentalists have ministerial responsibilities”, hammered home Marine Le Pen from her X account.
Xavier Bertrand-RN, a long-standing animosity
But as the Bernard Cazeneuve and Xavier Bertrand hypotheses were confirmed, the censorship knife lengthened. And once again, the RN’s communication was shaky. While the Nord MP Sébastien Chenu assured on September 1 that there would be no censorship in principle in the event of a Cazeneuve government, the party’s presidency denied this on Tuesday. For the RN headquarters, letting back the man who was “François Hollande’s last Prime Minister and (who) would hold a left-wing policy” borders on “impossible”.
The looks on the LR candidate’s side are no more tender. Even more so when he answers to the name of Xavier Bertrand, historical rival of Marine Le Pen in her stronghold of Pas-de-Calais. Thus, the RN group will not show itself to be more diligent with regard to a government that would have as its leader the LR president of the Hauts-de-France region. A position followed by his new ally, Eric Ciotti who has not forgotten that Xavier Bertrand “went so far as to call for a communist vote to block the Union of the Right, insulting 11 million voters in the process”.