The words chosen by the Prime Minister to reframe his Minister of Economy, Antoine Armand, who wanted to “close the door to the RN” were very harsh. Michel Barnier has no choice but to ensure the goodwill of the extreme right.
What happened with the Minister of Economy? Why did the Prime Minister call Marine Le Pen to let her know that his government would be much more benevolent towards the far right in the future? Why did he reprimand his minister?
Let us recall that the Prime Minister was furious on Tuesday after hearing his minister say on France Inter that the RN would not be invited to Bercy, like the other political forces, to discuss the avenues to explore to deal with the scale of the public debt. “He got a big slap in the face. Another one like that, and out!”, reported to Europe 1 a witness of the phone call made to Antoine Armand. “He got seriously yelled at, it’s a big load of crap,” a minister added to France 2.
Michel Barnier’s attitude may have been surprising, but it is nevertheless fully consistent with why he was appointed to Matignon. Emmanuel Macron’s choice to let a personality from LR form the government gave considerable weight to the National Rally. Some – like probably the aforementioned Minister of the Economy – had not understood it or thought that this was the opinion of certain editorialists. However, it is quite simply a concrete, tangible, insurmountable political fact. Explanations.
Why is Marine Le Pen deciding the future of this government?
This is not a figment of the imagination, it is completely factual and mathematical. By appointing Michel Barnier as Prime Minister, Emmanuel Macron opted for the formation of a government that would have a parliamentary base composed of only 220 deputies, very far from the 279 needed to have an absolute majority. Untenable? He knew that the left-wing deputies would vote for censure. The problem was also, for the president, that everything suggested that the far right would do the same: the RN is an opposition party and the logic of the institutions requires that political parties that do not agree with the government oppose it by voting for censure.
If Michel Barnier was appointed Prime Minister, it is because Emmanuel Macron therefore ensured with Marine Le Pen that the far-right deputies would not vote for a prior censure. This is the one and only reason. The president had also explained, in a press release, that the only reason why he was not appointing Lucie Castets, the NFP candidate for Matignon, was because the coalition of the center and that of the far right had indicated that they would vote for a censure against the left.
Arithmetically, the RN is therefore able to decide the future of the government. At any time, it can change its mind and affirm its opposition to the government and its desire to bring it down. The RN will then vote with the left-wing deputies for a motion of censure and Michel Barnier will resign. Beware of misinterpretations: it would then not be an alliance between the RN and the left, but simply the affirmation that this government does not have the assent of the opposition, which is diverse in the Assembly. Or put another way, that this government does not have the support of enough deputies to govern.
Why was the Minister of Economy reprimanded?
Clearly, Minister Antoine Armand had not understood that the government could only remain in place with the approval of the far right. The Minister of the Economy, on France Inter, had said that he would refuse to work with the RN, since the French had voted against the far right by mobilizing for the Republican Front. If the blockade of the far right is a factual fact of the legislative elections, the other factual fact is that we must not upset the RN.
And Marine Le Pen got angry, asking yesterday that Matignon remind all ministers of “the government’s philosophy”. Understand: the government cannot govern without the approval of the National Rally. Michel Barnier, who understood that the RN could vote for censure as early as next week, had no choice: to hold on, he had to remind them that he “respected” the National Rally deputies and that they would be heard at Bercy.
Why is this a huge political victory for Marine Le Pen?
Marine Le Pen probably did not expect to emerge so strengthened from Emmanuel Macron’s choice and this sequence. It must be said that Michel Barnier’s reaction brings her a considerable political victory. By calling Marine Le Pen to reassure her, and by leaking the information to Le Figaro, Michel Barnier publicly made everyone understand how essential she was. The president of the RN deputies has gained new stripes of respectability in one day, in solid gold, even becoming an essential interlocutor.
We must go even further in the analysis: if the Minister of the Economy stated that he did not want to receive representatives of the RN at Bercy, it is because the extreme right is not, according to him, part of the “republican arc”. This argument is also the foundation of the republican front which led to the election (including his own) of dozens of Macronist deputies – just like the NFP. The expression “republican arc” was even taken up by all the leading figures of the central bloc, defining it as going from the left to the right, excluding LFI and the RN.
By loudly stating that, from now on, the RN and Marine Le Pen are interlocutors to be “respected”, by giving them guarantees so that they do not vote for a motion of censure, Michel Barnier is therefore dissolving the idea that the RN is not in the “republican arc”. For Marine Le Pen, this can only be an immense political satisfaction.