Agnès Pannier-Runacher, representative of the left wing of Macronie, recalls that the votes of the New Popular Front (NFP) are essential to obtaining an absolute majority. Recently elected under the presidential banner, the MP for Pas-de-Calais calls on Lucie Castets, candidate of the left-wing coalition for Matignon, to take a step towards the former presidential majority, and vice versa. And deplores, for the time being, a situation in which “each group – including her own – locks itself in its certainties and mutual hatreds”.
L’Express: A month has passed since these legislative elections, and no absolute majority seems to be emerging. What assessment do you draw from the sequence?
Agnes Pannier-Runacher : This is the choice of the French, who turned out in large numbers to vote. The presidential camp lost the legislative and European elections: it is therefore not in a position to govern. But no one won. This configuration is not very original. As in other European countries, it is marked by a rise in extremes, itself producing geopolitical tensions, climate disruption and the purchasing power crisis. The other European nations know how to manage these situations: they negotiate coalitions.
Doesn’t the 2027 presidential election hamper any possibility of a coalition? The parties seem to want to embody alternation…
A coalition contract is not a definitive marriage, nor an alliance for 2027. The French expect us to move forward responsibly, by carrying out projects that respond to their immediate concerns. Some subjects ignore political labels, as the residents I met door to door kept telling me: like public services, schools or health, which concern citizens – regardless of their vote. We must also move away from the programmatic denial of the different blocs. On the left, we do not hear the demand for authority, which comes as much from left-wing voters as from right-wing voters. On the right, the political debate seems to be limited to immigration and security, and the issue of climate change, an anxiety that is nevertheless widely shared among the population, is a blind spot. Basically, today, the French are more responsible than the political class.
Should Emmanuel Macron agree to meet Lucie Castets, the candidate for Matignon designated by the New Popular Front?
This meeting will only make sense if Lucie Castets has a project and a team to propose that will not be immediately censored. For the time being, she is not answering the question posed by the Head of State: with whom? For what purpose? For how long? She should take him at his word and negotiate. The showdown is not with the President of the Republic, but with the parliamentary groups at the Palais Bourbon.
What relations should the former majority maintain with the New Popular Front, which came out on top in the last legislative elections (192 deputies)?
The NFP cannot act as if it had obtained an absolute majority. When we had 250 deputies, Nupes considered that we were not legitimate to govern. But today, with 192 deputies, Lucie Castets wants to apply “the program, the whole program, nothing but the program”? It does not work. The problem is that all the groups remain locked in their positions. We cannot have on one side the NFP promising a total overhaul of the pension reform, sitting on the 15 billion in new spending that this would entail, and on the other the central bloc, which rejects any debate, even minor, on this reform and the way to make it fairer as long as we do not degrade its funding.
Emmanuel Macron seems to be reaching out more to the right: are you comfortable with that? What is your view on the “emergency legislative pact” and some of its measures on immigration and security?
We are ready to negotiate with components of the left: it is still necessary for the PS, the ecologists and the PCF to be able to get out of an alliance in which they are today hostages of La France insoumise, which multiplies the provocations. Mathematics is stubborn: we cannot have an absolute majority without votes coming from the NFP.
The Republican Right’s “emergency legislative pact” is a bit like the NFP’s program: it’s an initial stake, and they are expected to make compromises, as we ourselves will have to make. However, there are elements of this pact that do not seem to me to be in conformity with the Constitution: these are among the problematic subjects. It is the symptom that the political debate has become a caricature, on the right as well as on the left. Each group locks itself in its certainties and mutual detestations. This is also true for the central bloc. As when some, in my camp, suggested that we could not discuss with the environmentalists: this position is not serious. The French expect much more from us than this crystallization on caricatured political postures.
Do you think, like some of your colleagues in the central bloc, that the country is right-wing?
France is not on the right. I am not the only one who thinks so, many of my colleagues tell me so too. This is a parallel truth that pollutes public debate. It is undoubtedly so in terms of authority, but in economic and social matters, it is on the left. When we go door-to-door in Pas-de-Calais, RN voters have a strong expectation of authority, that is very clear; but they also have an expectation of protection of public services, protection against the effects of climate change and protection of their purchasing power. And besides, it is probably no coincidence that the name currently circulating on the right to be Prime Minister is that of an elected official who claims a strong social position.
What do you think, moreover, of the rumor leading the president of Hauts-de-France, Xavier Bertrand, to Matignon – a possibility notably supported by the resigning Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin?
Xavier Bertrand is someone of esteem, who has a lot of political experience, no one questions him, just like Bernard Cazeneuve. But as for Lucie Castets, the subject is above all mathematical. With whom, on what program, and for how long? Even if the Macronists and the Republican Right manage to reach an agreement with the Liot group, there would be no absolute majority. And to pass on to the President of the Republic the responsibility for not having reached an agreement between parliamentary groups is to shirk our responsibilities as deputies. It is up to us to work on acceptable elements of a programmatic platform.
Finally, what lessons can be learned, halfway through, from this Olympic truce?
Paris is a party. France is a party. These Games are a popular success, but also an organizational success on all levels: security, public transport, international influence, spin-offs… and too bad for the extremists who have repeated ad nauseam that they were going to be a failure. The enthusiastic look that the press and international delegations are giving our model and our infrastructure should also wake us up: France is a great country that knows how to do great things, even unique things! This is enough to put an end to the declinists of the far right and the far left. All this works thanks to the professionals of public services, the police, the volunteers… It is also a transpartisan project, supported by a socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo, a regional president from the right, Valérie Pécresse, and a government of the central bloc. I hope that we will find inspiration there for the months to come!
.