“All these nights, why, for whom… And this morning that comes back for nothing.” Is Gilbert Bécaud’s classic ringing in the ears of the lieutenants of the New Popular Front? Because on Monday, August 26, three sentences in a communiqué from the Elysée Palace were enough to reduce the objectives of an intense campaign, which began last month, to nothing. “At the end of the consultations, the President of the Republic noted that a government based solely on the program and the parties proposed by the alliance bringing together the most deputies would be immediately censored by all the other groups in the National Assembly. Such a government would therefore immediately have a majority of more than 350 deputies against it, effectively preventing it from acting. Given the views of the political leaders consulted, the institutional stability of our country therefore requires that this option not be retained.” Lucie Castets, NFP candidate for Matignon, product of a painful birth between the forces of the union, on July 23, is courteously sent back to her business, at the Paris City Hall. Insoumis, socialists, ecologists and communists enjoin the head of state to respect their reading of the result of the ballot boxes. “And now, that [vont-ils] TO DO ?”
Condemn Emmanuel Macron’s choice, first of all. “Democracy means nothing to the president,” rages Lucie Castets. Olivier Faure, first secretary of the Socialist Party, deplores a “lunar decision,” while Marine Tondelier, head of the environmentalists, considers the presidential statement “shameful.” Secondly, try to understand – or not – the position taken by the President of the Republic. “He doesn’t want the left to govern,” complains the head of the PS senators, Patrick Kanner. “He still managed this feat with the French, making them amnesiac about his participation in a socialist government.” Jérémie Iordanoff, green MP for Isère, is racking his brain cells. “If he does not have to prejudge the lifespan of a government, it is still difficult to understand, from a tactical point of view. Let’s admit that they manage to torpedo the NFP: Wauquiez has already announced that the right does not want to participate in a government!”
“Macron makes fun of the street”
Act, in a third step. But the repertoire of action is meager… Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Insoumis had drawn – alone and without consultation with their comrades of the NFP – the procedure of dismissal of the President of the Republic. “A bad hypothesis because it is unrealistic: the Senate would never validate that”, euphemism of a socialist deputy. It must be said that in the PS, we did not appreciate the crude maneuver which amounts to nothing more than making “media noise with one’s mouth” – the expression is from an NFP executive. “A dirty trick”, according to those close to François Hollande himself who had been moved by it to Olivier Faure, the first secretary (and his former collaborator).
Another option is the street. The same Insoumis have not abandoned the impeachment card and are adding a call to demonstrate to youth organizations and trade union and political forces. The idea was first launched by the communists. Fabien Roussel launched a call for mobilization “everywhere, in front of prefectures, in cities” against an Emmanuel Macron whom he describes as “contemptuous of the Republic” to protect a “threatened Republic”, he says. Demonstration, march… What is the difference between the call of the communists and that of the Insoumis? “We are not in the logic of accentuating chaos for the sake of accentuating it”, temporizes Christian Picquet, rear admiral of the PCF. The socialists are not very enthusiastic about the idea, even if Olivier Faure has made it known that he would go there. “It’s not useless, it allows those who are not parliamentarians, the people, the French, to act, but it is not effective from an institutional point of view,” agrees a close friend of the first secretary, who adds: “Especially since Emmanuel Macron makes fun of the street, we saw it with the yellow vests and then with the thousands of people who marched against the pension reform.”
So what are they going to do? The left is keeping up the pressure on the head of state and looking for a loophole. The Insoumis have the lead role. The others, and in particular the socialists, have palace conversations, away from prying eyes, to “find a way” according to the consecrated expression, but “without compromise”, warns a PS leader. Thus, relations are not so bad with the deputies of Renaissance, MoDem or Horizons. Some see each other and chat between two corridors, over a coffee, or even share a taxi. The words of Aurore Bergé in Release : “There will be a general policy statement and it is on this basis that I will be able to decide whether or not to censor. In the same way that I do not say: I am signing a blank cheque and as a matter of principle, I do not censor, I cannot say: no matter the DPG, immediate censorship.”
The first to salute his political opponent: “It’s positive, constructive. We can move forward like that.” Especially since Macronie no longer really understands the first among them, the President of the Republic. “He’s burnt out,” say some elected officials, who don’t take Gabriel Attal at his word – “weakened,” according to the same people – when he claims that the censure of an NFP government would be “inevitable.” “Inevitable yes, automatic not necessarily,” temporizes a MoDem. The leader of the socialist deputies Boris Vallaud assures us: “It’s not us who threw a grenade with the pin pulled, but the President of the Republic. We are trying to be constructive. And among the Macronists, whatever some say, there are some who are less opposed to the possibility of an NFP government than their president.”
François Hollande’s pressure
But since no one is crossing a bridge, we must stand up to the president. “Stability is the argument of autocrats who refuse alternation,” castigates Arthur Delaporte, in response to the press release from the President of the Republic. The threat of a motion of censure remains the keystone of the opposition strategy of the relative majority of the NFP to the President of the Republic. On Tuesday morning, August 27, in a group meeting, the socialists agreed on three points: they will not participate in the demonstrations, contrary to Olivier Faure’s statement that very morning, will offer no support to the impeachment procedure, and will censure anything that is a reproduction of Macronism.
François Hollande, the former president who became an NFP MP, said no less. Furious with the Elysée’s press release the day before, he deplored Emmanuel Macron’s double error, “institutional and political”, in refusing to appoint Lucie Castets. For him, participation in the consultations wanted by the head of state no longer has any place, any more than the demonstrations wanted by the Insoumis. “How would we look going to the prefectures to defend the Castets government that has not been appointed or saying like Ruffin that we will have to go and get the president?” he said to his peers. He assures all the more that he has no problem with the censorship of a Prime Minister who would be in the continuity of Macronism. Emmanuel Macron has been warned, by his predecessor.
But at the ball of suitors, not all are suspected of continuity with Emmanuel Macron. In addition to the rumors launching Bernard Cazeneuve or the socialist mayor of Saint-Ouen Karim Bouamrane, other names are swirling in the corridors of the Élysée, and in particular business leaders, such as the CEO of Maif, Pascal Demurger, as reported The Opinion. According to information from L’Express, a new name is now stirring up the Château: Éric Lombard, the general director of the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations. In 2022, the daily The Echoes devoted a portrait to him, titled: “Eric Lombard, the banker who would like to see himself as a minister”. The former Rocardian, ministerial advisor to Michel Sapin, is described as “compatible with Macronie and appreciated by the left”. “Is he a man of the left like Olivier Dussopt? We know the song, it is not enough to declare yourself left-wing”, warns, ironically, a PS executive. Bécaud’s song is in the lead… “And then one evening in my mirror, I will see the end of the road.”
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