The online petition launched by LFI to support its impeachment proceedings against Emmanuel Macron could in particular become a tool of political pressure.
La France Insoumise will submit “today” its “resolution aimed at dismissing Emmanuel Macron“, indicated this Tuesday the leader of the rebellious deputies in the National Assembly, Mathilde Panot, during a press briefing. LFI “takes this decision as a response commensurate with the democratic coup that the President of the Republic is currently carrying out”, and this resolution will be “signed more widely than by the Insoumis”, she added. Before delivering a final blow to Emmanuel Macron: “We understood that if he could nominate himself, he would do so”.
190,000 signatures in four days
Since Saturday, August 31, a petition to support the impeachment procedure of the President of the Republic has been launched by La France Insoumise. To date, it has been signed by nearly 190,000 people. “Emmanuel Macron refuses to recognize the result of these elections by keeping the former government in power (…) this authoritarian drift is unprecedented in the world of parliamentary regimes and in the system of representative democracy. This is why we support the call for the impeachment of the President of the Republic by article 68 of the Constitution. By signing this petition, we ask deputies and senators to vote in favor of this approach to allow the return to a true democracy where the choices of the people are finally respected”, we can read on the site.
Target Emmanuel Macron and give weight to the impeachment motion
So, does this petition have any chance of moving the lines and leading to the dismissal of Emmanuel Macron, as the party’s leading lights and in particular its historic leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, hope? In reality, not really. Such an action could allow, ideally for the NFP, to attribute responsibility for the institutional blockage to Emmanuel Macron. In a press release, LFI accused him of “abuse of power” by not recognizing “the result of universal suffrage”, after the victory of the left in the last early legislative elections and the refusal of the head of state to appoint Lucie Castets to Matignon, the candidate designated by all the parties of the alliance. The petition therefore, in reality, serves more as a tool of political pressure on the head of state.
This petition can also allow LFI to bring legitimacy to its action by including the people. Citizens who have already expressed themselves on the issue. Indeed, according to an Elabe survey for BFMTV, published on Wednesday, August 28, 49% of French people say they are in favor of a motion of censure against Emmanuel Macron. This is why the inclusion of citizens in the NFP’s approach could still give it more weight, in the absence of a favorable vote on the impeachment motion.
A test for the New Popular Front
Finally, the impeachment proposal could allow the solidity of the New Popular Front to be tested, particularly internally. As Anne-Charlène Bezzina, lecturer in public law at the University of Rouen, recalled in the columns of Public Senate on August 18, “this will be a test for the NFP, the office must decide on the admissibility of the proposal so there is a risk of implosion”. Of the 22 members of the office, if the NFP is in the majority with 12 members, only 4 of them are from LFI. If some socialists were to have a divergent opinion, now that all the parties seem to agree on the motion of dismissal, the situation could become tense within the left alliance.