The formula has the ambiguity of Macronist newspeak. These concepts that everyone interprets as they please, that is also their reason for being. The Elysée promised all summer that the next Prime Minister and his team would exude a “scent of cohabitation”. The commitment, repeated at length in press articles, would be faithful to the verdict of the ballot boxes. Of course, the presidential camp lost the legislative elections, nothing can be as before. But since no one won, the keys to the truck cannot be entrusted to an irreducible opponent of the head of state.
Beware of oxymorons. It is often necessary to keep only one word. Emmanuel Macron seems especially attentive to the smell given off by his new Prime Minister. Please favor gentleness. In July, the President of the Republic asked the future executive “not to destroy what we have just done, but to build and move forward”, citing the attractiveness of the country. He then assigned himself the obligation to form a majority government to better exclude the New Popular Front (NFP), which came in first in terms of number of seats. A practical argument to oust his radical program. On Monday, September 2, he receives Bernard Cazeneuve at the Elysée. He also intends to put a left-wing imprint on government policy, at the risk of upsetting Macronist totems. Ouch! The president is committed to his pension reform, “fundamentally unfair” in the eyes of the former socialist.
The legislative elections, an elusive ballot
Playing the game of “cohabitation”, but with whom? Emmanuel Macron is relying on the ambiguity of the last legislative elections to remain master of the game. No one agrees on the message sent by the French. Each camp favors an analysis that is favorable to it, by means of self-interested interpretations. The National Rally brandishes its 11 million votes in the first round when the NFP calls upon its status as the first coalition in number of seats. The central bloc can, for its part, argue its ideological proximity to LR – the two camps voted together on many texts between 2022 and 2024 – to stay in power. “We must assume that the central bloc is the first group in the Assembly”, slips an LR deputy, including himself in this political space.
The head of state has every opportunity here to impose his reading of July 7 to make “cohabitation” as painless as possible. At the risk of being accused of violating the popular will in order to retain power. And of exposing each Prime Minister, struck with illegitimacy, to express censorship of the opposition. The plasticity of Macronism finally makes it difficult to keep this promise of a “scent of cohabitation”. “Everyone has been, is or will be a Macronist”, likes to recall the vice-president of the Republicans Julien Aubert, to better underline the elusiveness of this movement. Macronism sailed in the center-left, before setting sail in the center-right. It triumphed by depriving its rivals of political space, keeping as its only strong opponents La France Insoumise (LFI) and the National Rally (RN). Shouldn’t a breath of “cohabitation” be radical by nature?
The central block, a craftsman of cohabitation?
And then, how do you define “cohabitation”? Does it mean an ideological break with the power in place? Or can it be reduced to a matter of personalities? Take Xavier Bertrand. The head of Hauts-de-France has a degraded relationship with Emmanuel Macron, whom he hoped to oust from the Elysée in 2022. “Your policies have brought despair to the country, reinforcing the feeling of downgrading of a large part of our fellow citizens,” he denounced at the end of June in The Figaro. But the virulence of the remarks is proportional to the ideological connections between the two men. They share the same European commitment and do not have an antagonistic economic approach. In the event of an appointment, one would need a highly developed sense of smell to be intoxicated by perfume.
The head of state is struck by a final contradiction. He promises change… but the central bloc is in fact at the heart of the new Assembly. Thus, the groups Ensemble pour la République (EPR), Horizons et Indépendants and Les Démocrates, those of the former presidential majority, have not registered in the opposition in the new Assembly. Ministers want to stay in place, the committee presidencies were stormed by Macronist deputies this summer. It will therefore be necessary to rely on the deputies of the former majority to put the scent of cohabitation into music. They have little desire to multiply the “pschitts”. A questioning of the pension reform is “a red line for us”, assured this Tuesday on Franceinfo the former president of the Renaissance group Sylvain Maillard. A resigning minister warns: “If Cazeneuve turns the helm to the left and unravels the pension reform, centrist deputies will leave the majority.” The central bloc deputies have gained independence thanks to the dissolution and do not intend to submit to the new Prime Minister on principle. It is not Gabriel Attal, in latent conflict with the head of state, who will rein them in. This whiff of cohabitation is described as a maneuver by Emmanuel Macron’s opponents. By the very nature of Macronism, it seems above all hypothetical.
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