MACRON. The victory of the presidential camp in the legislative elections keeps a taste of defeat for Emmanuel Macron. Without an absolute majority, the Head of State is preparing for a difficult governance of France and a systematic quest for support in the Assembly.
Look for a legislative result near you
[Mis à jour le 20 juin 2022 à 8h35] Emmanuel Macron obtained the majority in the Assembly in the second round of legislative elections, alas for him, it is only relative. Far from the triumph of 2017, the President of the Republic will not have a group strong enough to decide alone on the policy to be pursued for the next five years. A question is therefore on everyone’s lips: how will Emmanuel Macron be able to govern in a France that all the press describes as “ungovernable” the day after the election? He must find allies and this is the mission that falls to the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, since this morning.
Everything suggests that Emmanuel Macron will reach out to the right after eyeing the left since the first round of the presidential election. With 245 seats in the Assembly, the presidential majority needs the 70 elected Republicans to impose its legislative proposals. Problem, the right is not convinced of the interest of “falling into the arms” of Macron as an LR collaborator explained to BFM TV. Same story for the boss of the right Christian Jacob who assured last night on all television sets: “We are in the opposition, we will remain in the opposition”. LREM will therefore have to skillfully play its cards to try to convince. But before going to preach in the opposing camps, it is in its own ranks that the presidential majority will have to ensure the support of all, in particular of François Bayrou and Edouard Philippe. The respective bosses of MoDem and Horizons intend to take their part and be heard within this majority, a scenario that does not make LREM happy according to a Macronie executive with BFM TV : “It is sure that they will piss us off all five years now. […] The question is from when they decide to mark the first act of their independence. It’s the worst case scenario for us.”
Emmanuel Macron forced to change Prime Minister?
It is a small victory in the legislative elections for Emmanuel Macron but it is a victory all the same which allows him above all to keep the Prime Minister whom he appointed on May 20 at his side. Elisabeth Borne, victorious in the 6th constituency of Calvados should remain in Matignon for some time. Firstly because the one who is described as a workaholic is not ready to leave her post, as macronie executives told the Parisian on condition of anonymity: “She showed that she had character , that she knows how to do politics despite everything. So, it will be difficult to move her“. Then because changing Prime Minister so quickly would be tantamount to admitting a casting error at the start. The defeat of three ministers in the legislative elections, including the number 5 in the government, Amélie de Montchalin, Minister for the Ecological Transition, sufficiently embarrasses the government and forces it into an imminent reshuffle.
A majority too narrow to keep Elisabeth Borne?
The fact remains that the small majority obtained by Emmanuel Macron and the presidential camp does not allow Elisabeth Borne to be deeply anchored as Prime Minister in the face of the opposition forces, nor within LREM when several voices, including from the presidential majority, are are raised to challenge Elisabeth Borne. The Parisian summarized the content in a recent article. Some in the presidential camp already believe that without an absolute majority (therefore with a so-called “relative” majority, ie less than 289 deputies), the country would become “simply ungovernable”.
Emmanuel Macron could be faced not with a hostile majority, but with a problem of legitimacy. “I don’t see how she can hold up in such a context. She is going to live a real hell”, worries already a “baron of the executive”, quoted by the Ile-de-France daily. Emmanuel Macron would then be forced to replace a government boss who “does not print”, “out of time with the political moment”.
In this hypothesis of relative majority, the more moderate opposition groups know that they can play a pivotal role in the National Assembly and succeed in getting some of their measures passed in exchange for the support given to the power in place. This is what the group of Republicans aims for. The right ensured before the second round that it will sit in a “constructive opposition” which will not close the door to all the proposals of the presidential majority. But Emmanuel Macron could also play on the political past of his Prime Minister, formerly close to the left and the socialists, to convince some dissident voices in the group to join the majority on certain votes. Better, Emmanuel Macron can consider playing on both sides in a logic of “at the same time” to ensure additional votes sometimes on the right sometimes on the left according to the proposed project: rather economic or rather social. Still, the oppositions are not required to play the game of negotiations. Discussions would then begin on each text, opening the way to an almost unprecedented political situation and which should, for sure, vitalize the democratic debate in a politically fragmented France.
Emmanuel Macron, an insufficient “bulwark” against the opposition
During the legislative campaign, Emmanuel Macron chose to pose, as during the presidential election, as a bulwark against “the extremes”, sending the radical left and the far right back to back. He also affirmed his support for the internal security forces, “in particular our gendarmes” whom he visited at the Gaillac gendarmerie brigade. And to tackle in passing the controversial remarks of Mr. Mélenchon on “the police who kill”. “There are things that from where I am, I cannot accept, it is that we insult those who risk their lives to protect ours,” said the head of state. “I do not think that people who come from socialism or from republican political forces can make comments on justice, on the police like those made by Jean-Luc Mélenchon”, further estimated the President of the Republic, in an allusion to the controversy launched after the criticism of the leader of Nupes against the police, he had also declared a week earlier in the Paris region.
In Seine-Saint-Denis, land favorable to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Emmanuel Macron had also castigated, during a walkabout of more than an hour, the “project of prohibitions and taxation” of Nupes. “Their project explains to people that they are going to be prohibited from cutting down trees in their homes. There are 20 new taxes. This is not a good project for the country”, he had launched, taking up the arguments made by his camp for weeks, believing that the country “needs stability and ambition”. A call which was not completely heard in view of the scores this Sunday evening… A position which was however only held the last week of the campaign, insufficient to impregnate the spirits. Moreover, there are countless criticisms, including in the ranks of LREM, targeting Emmanuel Macron who has not invested enough in the legislative elections and bears, according to them, part of the responsibility for the rise of the radical left and of the extreme right.
Emmanuel Macron forced into alliances to save his majority?
Without obtaining an absolute majority of 289 deputies, Emmanuel Macron will see his candidates sit with a relative majority in the first group of the Assembly. This has already been seen in 1988 when, after the re-election of François Mitterrand, the Socialist Party had obtained only 275 seats in the hemicycle. At the time, Michel Rocard, Edith Cresson then Pierre Bourdon, who had succeeded each other in the office of Prime Minister, had to ensure negotiations with other parties, the communist group or that of the union of the center most often, to glean a few votes and have the texts of laws adopted. In 2022, the leader of Macronie should be faced with the same situation and send his Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne in search of support in the opposition groups at the cost of some compromises so that his policy can be implemented.