What does Gabriel Attal think of Emmanuel Macron’s quest for “stability”, a phrase repeated once again in the press release published Monday evening by the Elysée? He, a very young and fresh Prime Minister, mowed down in full take-off by a president who had no use, at the time, for the famous stability… Unless the word, today, is just a way of distancing the New Popular Front from responsibilities.
Institutional hullabaloo: the president no longer knows which foot to dance on. What is not well conceived must be clearly stated – to create an illusion. On Monday evening, the Elysée stressed that Emmanuel Macron received the partisan delegations “in his constitutional role as arbiter, guarantor of institutional stability and the independence of the Nation”. Clearly, he is making an effort. His interlocutors on Friday noticed that he was really trying to rise above the fray. “He pretended to show that he was president and not head of government”, underlined a visitor from the former majority, who added: “Emmanuel Macron, structurally, does not understand what it might be like not to govern completely.”
Since the second round of the legislative elections, the head of state has given the impression of no longer knowing where he lives. He accepts reality at a snail’s pace and forces his teams to row in an attempt to conceal the discrepancies.
On August 22, the Elysée Palace organized a briefing with journalists: “The first lesson is that the outgoing majority lost. The president spoke about it very clearly, in his speeches in July.” It has become urgent to highlight this point, because it is obviously false that the head of state spoke about it “very clearly” in July. In his letter of July 10, he wrote: “No one won.” Which does not mean that his camp was defeated.
It would be necessary to wait for his televised intervention on July 23 for him to recognize that “the outgoing majority lost this election”. First delay in ignition. The second comes from the room for maneuver that Emmanuel Macron thinks he will keep on the policy implemented. In July, there is still talk of a road map. On television, he notes that “the emergency of the country is not to destroy what we have just done, but to build and move forward”, he says his desire that the policy of fighting unemployment and attractiveness of France not be called into question, he even adds that it is necessary to “consolidate” competitiveness.
The words have become empty
Except that the economic policy that will be implemented, including the fate of the pension reform, no longer depends on him. Here again, the Elysée, last week, is obliged to put the church back in the middle of the village: “From the moment that there has been a defeat of the presidential camp, it is up to the future Prime Minister and the future government to propose measures.” Not for the president to indicate the path that should be taken.
Times have changed, he struggles to understand it. Hence also the difficulty in appointing a Prime Minister. “He was slow to acknowledge that it could not be someone from his camp,” notes one of his outgoing ministers. Emmanuel Macron now increasingly speaks of a “coalition”. He even alluded to it during the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Paris, on August 25.
This time, it is François Bayrou who jumps upon hearing this: the centrist, who today claims to be more Gaullist than the last of the Gaullists, considers that the president is not there to put himself in the hands of the parties and that the executive does not come from the legislative – otherwise the government would be the sum of parliamentary delegations. What about the famous article 8 of the Constitution, which stipulates that “the president appoints the Prime Minister”? According to The Tribune SundayEmmanuel Macron responded to François Bayrou last Friday that “no one would accept that I decide everything alone”.
The Republican front is no better than the institutions. We thought it had been reinvigorated by the dissolution, but in reality it is in tatters. The executive is now paying for Gabriel Attal’s maneuvers during the second round: LFI called to the rescue yesterday, pilloried today. “I am aware that this vote obliges me for the years to come,” said Emmanuel Macron on the evening of his re-election against Marine Le Pen, on April 24, 2022. “The political parties in government must not forget the exceptional circumstances of the election of their deputies in the second round of the legislative elections. This vote obliges them,” said the Elysée press release on Monday evening. Words have become empty. This is also how the extent of chaos can be measured.
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