The discussions are taking place ” Alright ” according to Michel Barnier. The new French Prime Minister has been consulting political parties since Friday, September 6, with the aim of quickly forming a government. Positive discussions and ” full of energy “, said the head of government, who has so far only seen his allies. But the passage before the National Assembly promises to be tough.
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He started his consultations with the simplest approach. Michel Barnier spoke on the morning of September 6 with his allies, first receiving Gabriel Attalhis predecessor now head of the Ensemble pour la République group in the Assembly. He then continued with the leaders of his own party Les Républicains (LR).
Enough to take the first steps towards forming a government which will include – it is now official – members of LR, even if, for form’s sake, Laurent Wauquiez, leader of the Republican right in the Assembly, makes this participation conditional on the programme which will be carried by Michel Barnier.
In reality, we are more in a government mechanism with negotiations on the distribution of sovereign positions – Interior, Economy, Justice, Armed Forces – rather than on a real in-depth discussion. This will be played out more in the hemicycle.
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The RN has the cards in hand
With more than 140 deputies, the National Rally (RN) and its allies, ex-Republicans led by Éric Ciotti, can quite easily overthrow the government, the left-wing coalition and its 193 deputies already intending to censure Michel Barnier and his team.
The Prime Minister is therefore faced with a double cohabitation: the first, with Emmanuel Macron. Even if the head of state apparently intends to give Michel Barnier a certain freedom, by not sending, for example, advisers to interministerial meetings.
But he will also have to constantly give assurances to the extreme right, because the latter has announced that it wants to ” judge on the evidence ” without ruling anything out. The RN deputy, Thomas Ménagé, guest of RFI on September 6, thus believes that his party ” has absolutely not abandoned the possibility of censorship “.
A government program leaning towards the extreme right?
The future government will therefore have to convince the RN to stay in power. As early as Thursday evening, Michel Barnier raised the themes of security, immigration and purchasing power as priorities. His political profile is also coherent enough to appeal to the far right: in 2021, during the LR primary to designate the presidential candidate, he proposed a moratorium on immigration, which is the position of Marine Le Pen.
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The difficulty for the Prime Minister will be to get the presidential camp and its moderate wing to accept policies inspired by the extreme right. Centrists who can nevertheless be convinced by the context, like the asylum immigration law adopted a few months ago by the former majority and which already took up concepts and proposals directly from the RN.
Left offside?
The situation is more comfortable, this September 6, for the New Popular Front than it was at the beginning of the week, when the name of the former socialist Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve was still circulating for Matignon. Now, things are clear, there are in reality two blocs in the Assembly: one going from the center to the extreme right and the other to the left.
In the perspective of new early legislative elections, this is not necessarily a bad thing for the NFP. On condition of course that self-sabotage is avoided, as was the case with the previous union of the left, the Nupes. The first mobilization against the new Prime Minister will not, however, be united: if LFI, the PCF and the Ecologists will participate this Saturday, September 7, in the protest marches initiated by the youth organizations, the PS will not go.
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