Examination of the 2025 budget at the National Assembly is approaching, such as the deposit of a possible motion of censorship against the government. The maintenance or reversal of François Bayrou could be played with a few voices.
François Bayrou’s victory over his first censorship is only a distant memory. The Prime Minister is preparing to face a new attempt to overthrow with the examination of the bill concerning the 2025 budget. The text arrived in joint joint committee (CMP) this Thursday, January 30 and will be examined and then voted in the National Assembly Monday, February 3. The CMP, mainly made up of support for the government (8 out of 14 elected officials), can lead to an agreement, but that is not to say that the text will be adopted for sure in the hemicycle. On the contrary, the tripartism of the lower room risks pushing François Bayrou to use 49.3, a maneuver which would lead to the deposit of a censorship motion by a part of the opposition and most certainly from the left. If such a text was actually deposited, it should be voted 48 hours later, on Wednesday February 5 at the earliest.
A week of a possible new test to overthrow the government, what are François Bayrou’s chances to stay in Matignon? If during the first censorship he had been able to count on the support of the National Rally (RN) and the Socialist Party (PS), the Prime Minister has since crumpled some of these opposition forces.
The PS threatens publicly to censor, but negotiates behind the scenes
The PS has already stood out during the first censorship motion by not voting against the government, unlike the rest of the new Popular Front (NFP), and continued on its momentum. The party, however, put the end to the discussions after the Prime Minister broke up the “prerequisite” for exchanges with the PS on the common commitment aimed at “never depending on the RN”, explained a socialist to Politico. A rupture trained by the mention made by François Bayrou of the “feeling of migratory submersion”, a vocabulary “knowingly borrowed” in the extreme right according to the Head of socialist deputies Boris Vallaud.
But if publicly exchanges were interrupted, behind the scenes the negotiations continued between the government and the PS according to the indiscretions of Politico to whom an observer has slipped that he “There was an instruction on both sides so that no one says anything”. Socialists argue to obtain several guarantees: the promise not to touch the budget for state medical aid (AME) and gestures for purchasing power as an “immediate minimum wage” or an “increase in Activity bonus “according to deputy Philippe Brun.
In the absence of an “opening on the left” and taking into account socialist claims by the CMP, the PS “will vote for censorship” against François Bayrou warned the same socialist deputy in a press point on Thursday, January 30. The final decision of the PS is therefore not yet taken, but it could divide. Already mixed during the first censorship – 8 elected officials had supported the motion against the general position of the party -, the socialist deputies could this time be numerous to want to overthrow the government.
Why the support of the PS counts as much …
Aside from the PS, the entire NFP left to vote a censorship motion, which represents 126 votes out of the 289 necessary to overthrow the government. The parts of the common base – the presidential camp, the right and the Liot group – should not support censorship, it is therefore on the RN and its ciotist allies that the success or the failure of censorship rests (still).
With its 124 elected officials, and its 16 allies of the Union of Laws for the Republic (UDR), the RN has not affirmed its will to censor the government. However, the Lepéniste party has threatened to vote the motion under certain conditions: the increase in electricity prices or even the renunciation of planing of the AME. However, the CMP adopted the first measure and the second is a left -wing requirement. Censorship is therefore possible, although not insured. If the RN and the UDR elected officials added their voices to those of the NFP, the motion would obtain 266 supporters and there would only be 23 votes to overthrow the government. It would then suffice for a third of the PS elected officials to vote the motion to push François Bayrou towards the exit. Hence the importance for the government to spare the left party.
… and how that of the RN can save or plunge Bayrou
Another possible case: the government renounces the support of the 66 socialist votes, which would bring the votes of the NFP to 192, and tries to ensure votes of the RN and elected UDR. Without the 140 votes of the far right, no censorship motion can succeed. A detail that has not escaped Lepénist deputies as an elected official did Politico : “If there is no agreement with the PS, the spotlights will shine again on us!” He would not have escaped François Bayrou either according to a former macronist minister who considers to 20 minutes that the Prime Minister “now considers that the dynamics of censorship are more in the far right than to left”. However, by turning to the RN, François Bayrou risks committing “the same error as Michel Barnier” censored despite concessions to the far right.