François Bayrou will face a first motion of censure which will be filed by LFI after his general policy speech on January 14. To avoid being overthrown, he negotiated with the different political forces, particularly on the left.
François Bayrou has an appointment with Parliament to deliver his general policy declaration (DPG) this Tuesday, January 14. A date also included in the agenda of La France insoumise for the filing of a motion of censure against the new tenant of Matignon. If this fringe of the left has already planned to oppose the Prime Minister, the other parties placed on the left of the political spectrum have not yet made a decision. Everyone is waiting to see what François Bayrou proposes, and especially what he is prepared to guarantee to avoid censorship.
Negotiations have therefore been organized for more than a week between the head of government and elected officials from the Socialist Party (PS), the French Communist Party (PCF) and the Ecologists. But as François Bayrou’s speech to Parliament approaches, the participation of left-wing forces in a non-censorship pact – so desired by the government so as not to fall sooner than that led by Michel Barnier – is still not not assured. “The score is not there yet” in the eyes of the PS, Olivier Faure said on January 12 on BFMTV.
Pension reform: justice of the peace for the PS
The left knows its essential support for the Bayrou government which does not want to owe its maintenance to the vote of the elected representatives of the National Rally (RN). Taking advantage of this new position, she sets her conditions and pushes her ideas with in mind the “suspension” of the measure pushing back the legal retirement age to 64 for six months, the time of the renegotiation of the reform of the retirements. But the PS has not yet won its case according to Olivier Faure, the first secretary of the rose-colored party nevertheless salutes Release “a change of attitude on the government side” with whom he has an “uninterrupted exchange with the confrontation of arguments and solutions”.
A sign that a conciliation can be found? Olivier Faure does not rule out this option, but warned about BFMTV that in the current state of discussions the socialists would “censor” the government of François Bayrou. A way to put pressure on the Prime Minister who still has a few hours to find common ground before his DPG.
Negotiations are also continuing with the communists who are also expecting efforts regarding pension reform, and with the environmentalists. But on the Green side, MP Sandrine Rousseau has already indicated that she would vote for the motion of censure. If it is imitated by all EELV deputies, this already represents 28 votes against the government in place. This fragmentation of the left could therefore work against François Bayrou as he approaches his general policy declaration.
LR and the central block behind Bayrou, unless…
What about the presidential majority – however relative it may be? In seeking support from the left, François Bayrou must not neglect the positions of the common base parties. “If you gain on the left what you lose in the common base, it’s useless,” said a government advisor ironically this Thursday in the columns of Politico. However, both the presidential coalition and the Republican right are not in favor of unraveling the pension reform. Emmanuel Macron has always placed this measure as a red line not to be touched.
More recently, it was also the heavyweights of the right who opposed the “suspension” of the reform desired by the left. “Suspend [cette réforme] without an alternative scenario is like jumping into the void without a parachute. It will be without the Republican Right!”, warned Laurent Wauquiez on January 12 in The Parisian. But at the same time, the boss of the right-wing deputies assures that he is not “part of those who threaten a motion of censure”, in fact reducing the threat of a censure voted by the right. François Bayrou would be warned: if the executive is content to make adjustments, there will be no censorship, but “if there is a questioning of the fundamental parameters, that is another subject”, said a relative of Laurent Wauquiez to Politico. The government is warned, to make choices, yes, but within the limits of “reasonable”.
The RN threatens censorship
If the RN should not initially pose any big problems to the government of François Bayrou, it could ultimately toughen its tone. Politico believed to be known on Friday that far-right elected officials “should be content to defend their counter-budget” during negotiations with the government and therefore not vote for a motion of censure. But the progress of discussions with the left has apparently changed the situation. “This government has not learned the lessons of the censorship of Michel Barnier” who “fell because the budget he presented to us was a socialist budget,” warned Jordan Bardella on RTL on the eve of the Prime Minister’s speech. And the president of the RN added that “the same causes would lead to the same effects on the institutional level”, namely censorship of François Bayrou. The RN actually had the luxury of playing referee and burying the government of Michel Barnier, despite several concessions made by the former Prime Minister.