But that’s not his style. Admittedly, Elisabeth Borne is not a block of cold concrete, many have already seen her laugh out loud, be teased, even vulgar… But shed a few tears, never. It is with red and misty eyes that she addressed the deputies of Renaissance, MoDem and Horizons, gathered in an intergroup Thursday afternoon. This is to say the pressure, the fatigue, the disappointment that crosses her, she who has just come down from the rostrum of the National Assembly.
A few minutes earlier, she engaged, under the songs of the Insoumis and the slamming of desks of the elected officials of the RN, the responsibility of her government by activating article 49.3 of the Constitution to have the pension reform adopted. Its pension reform. “Never the question of my personal future counted in the decision that has just been taken”, she says, sincerely, in front of her troops, whom she knows then largely frustrated by the passage in force decided by the President and Prime Minister. In less than twenty-four hours, they ratified a double failure: that of finding a majority and that of its method. Definitely, and definitively, the LRs were far too weak allies to be reliable. How did we get here ?
“Promises only bind those who believe them”, Charles Pasqua used to repeat. This Wednesday, March 15, the meeting of the LR group organized following the joint joint committee (CMP) is coming to an end. The deputies are gradually investing in the room of the four columns, where a handful of journalists are frolicking. Two deputies hostile to the reform confide their doubts. They praise a serene exchange, their certainties are troubled. “It makes you think,” admits Maxime Minot. “Doubt is constantly present among public decision-makers,” adds Raphaël Schellenberger. The next day, the two men will confirm their intention to vote against the project. They swear to have matured their decision, one of their comrades is perplexed: “We confused the government. Some pretended to change their minds to push for the vote, he smiles. It was from the Actors Studio.
“I am losing deputies”
Everyone hides their game. The vagueness reigns. A few minutes after this final meeting on Wednesday, the boss of the LR group Olivier Marleix and the president of LR Eric Ciotti meet in the office of the first for a new count. The two oils exchange on the phone with Elisabeth Borne. They assure him that 32 or 33 LR deputies are ready to vote for the reform. “I am losing deputies”, she would have told them, on the other hand, in reference to her own majority. The Prime Minister and several members of the government then join the Élysée for a working meeting around Emmanuel Macron in order to estimate the security cushion to go to the vote Thursday at 3 p.m. It’s time for optimism. We are already well advanced in the evening and the entourage of the Head of State is playing this card at will “to put pressure on the Republicans”, according to a minister. A traditional leak orchestrated by the palace indicates that Emmanuel Macron is ready to dissolve the Assembly in the event of defeat, to shake up the hesitant of LR and the recalcitrant of the majority. Everyone plays their game.
This Thursday morning, it’s already not the same story. We continue to bluff in the Macronist ranks, but the concern is palpable. On all the floors where the calculators are out, we realize that this famous LR voice mattress is punctured. The threat of dissolution brandished by Emmanuel Macron in the event of a negative vote? “Counter-productive among some who were ready to abstain and who went against it,” says an elected LR.
At noon, the President of the Republic urgently brings together the tenors of the majority, bosses of groups and bosses of parties. François Bayrou is there, Édouard Philippe, him, in videoconference. Aurore Bergé, the president of the Renaissance group, and the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin are more and more alone in defending a passage to the vote. Incomprehensible for a leader of the majority: “If we lose, it’s Macron who takes everything in the face! The defeat in the Assembly will not be that of Bergé, it will not be that of Darmanin, it will be that of of Macron. If they manage to convince him to go there and it loses, I will not forgive them.”
Too little difference
Around 2 p.m., Elisabeth Borne realizes the facts, takes it upon herself: despite the phone calls, the last attempts to get a few more votes, the gap is far too small. She proposes to the president to resort to 49.3, who accepts. “He preferred to pass his reform by putting his Prime Minister and his government on the breach, rather than risk it not being voted on and putting himself in danger”, sums up a member of the government. A council of ministers is urgently organized to allow Borne to press the red button.
At 2:45 p.m., Aurore Bergé was “livid”, according to a Renaissance parliamentarian, who had just returned from the Élysée, who addressed her troops in the Salle Colbert of the Palais Bourbon. Most of the Renaissance elected officials pushed, like their president, to give it a shot at 3 p.m. “It’s normal, because everyone is asking questions in the event of 49.3. We wonder how we are going to be perceived at home in the constituency, are we going to be re-elected…”, explains one of ‘them. “I understand the president’s decision, but I’m disappointed. I think we had to go to the vote, we’re going to have trouble being audible now,” continues another.
So we went from a threat of dissolution – with a vote, a real one – to the atomic weapon of 49-3 in the space of a few hours. One of the pillars of the Renaissance group, who crossed the room of the four columns in the Assembly just after the announcement of Elisabeth Borne in the hemicycle, notes the ineffectiveness of the strategy of the last few days: “Frankly, we have tried everything to have a majority, to convince the last LRs who were hesitating: we gave them a whole bunch of gift amendments in the text on nuclear power, we told them that we could give them nudges from the State in their constituencies, we put a lot of pressure on them… Well, that was not enough.”
“We demonized 49.3”
A few hundred meters from the Palais Bourbon, on the Place de la Concorde, a crowd of demonstrators began to form. On the other side of the Seine, smoke rises, songs are already heard. It is a feeling of failure that crosses Macronie, it was enough to see the faces of Gabriel Attal, Gérald Darmanin or even Sébastien Lecornu on the bench while their leader declined his speech. “There was a big mistake this weekend, blows a minister who has been in the government for a long time. Borne, Attal, Dussopt… They all repeated that we would not use 49.3. Result: we demonized it. even more than he already was!”
The next crucial stage will be that of the motions of censure. At the LR, at the end of the afternoon, a vote was organized on the advisability of depositing one. 10 deputies are in favor, including Aurélien Pradié, 35 vote against. The deputy of Lot evokes three evils: “The two extremes and the way in which Macronie led this debate.” “I refuse to have my name associated with that of Le Pen on a vote,” replies his colleague Emilie Bonnivard. Within the group’s management, the challenge is posed: to limit as much as possible the number of elected LRs ready to vote for one of the motions tabled by the other opposition groups.
More than ever, the word of Emmanuel Macron, supposed to address the French before the visit of the King of England at the end of March, is expected. A member of the government takes bets, his silences seem to whisper “reshuffle”: “It will move very quickly, in my opinion. I do not see Macron waiting much longer to express himself.”