Gabriel Attal’s government has yet to be named, but it is already threatened by a motion of censure that the elected representatives of La France insoumise plan to table if the Prime Minister refuses to comply with the vote of confidence.
The Attal government has not yet seen the light of day and there is already a threat hanging over it: that of a motion of censure. Gabriel Attal had officially been Prime Minister for only a few minutes when the president of the group of rebellious deputies in the National Assembly, Mathilde Panot, demanded that the new head of government submit to a vote of confidence, otherwise the elected representatives of Rebellious France “will depose[t] a motion of censure.
This threat of the motion of censure was mentioned the day before the appointment of the Prime Minister by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “Are we still a parliamentary democracy? The new Prime Minister will show us if he asks for a vote of confidence in the National Assembly. Otherwise, motion of censure and we will know who the opposition is” he wrote in the evening on X, formerly Twitter.
Who would vote for the motion of censure?
If the filing of the motion of censure of La France insoumise was subject to a condition, that of the refusal of the Prime Minister to seek the confidence of the deputies for his government, the procedure could ultimately take place whatever the choice of the government according to The Parisian. The motion of censure should make it possible to “clarify who supports the government and its policy so harsh for the weak and so generous for the powerful, and on the other side, who is opposed to this policy”, detailed the LFI MEP Manon Aubry, on South Radio, this Tuesday, January 9. On the side of the rebels, the position is clear: the appointment of Gabriel Attal is not satisfactory. “Gabriel Attal is the one who took over everything from Macronie. […] He’s a kind of junior Macron, specialized in arrogance and contempt,” criticized Mathilde Panot, adding in the name of her party: “We can no longer have a government that creates majorities at will to the point of taking the votes of the extreme right.”
But La France insoumise is the only opposition group to support the vote on a motion of censure against the government not yet formed. The other left-wing forces did ask for a vote of confidence, a “republican tradition” according to Olivier Faure, first secretary of the Socialist Party, but none mentioned a motion of censure and none took a position on the declarations of the Insoumis . The socialist only pleaded for a general policy speech to be delivered by the Prime Minister, a speech considered “the least of things” by the boss of the French Communist Party, Fabien Roussel, in order to justify the “reasons for the reshuffle” .
“There is no reason to censor someone who has not yet announced anything”
And what does the far right think of the motion of censure? The National Rally has not officially made a decision regarding the vote on a possible motion, but for the moment there would be no question of supporting the text. “I do not think that the French want us to censor a priori a government which has not yet done or announced anything,” declared RN deputy Jean-Philippe Tanguy this Wednesday on France Inter.