Giving up running for high office, what a strange idea. Our elected officials have rather accustomed us to the opposite, strong in an insatiable appetite for power. He did not hesitate. This former Macronist commission president did not run for any position of responsibility in the new National Assembly. Without regrets. “Nothing is going to happen. What would I do in a blocked system where I would be screwed like a dead rat in my office?”
Has our man lost his mind? The legislative elections gave birth to a fragmented Parliament, independent of a once all-powerful president. The king is dead, long live the Palais Bourbon! As early as June 2022, the absence of an absolute majority had given it unprecedented prominence, with tough negotiations accompanying each bill. Some prominent MPs were even happy – bad faith included – not to sit on the Council of Ministers. No, the power was elsewhere. “It is always better to be inside than outside,” the President of the Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet privately judges. “Politically, that’s where it’s happening.” The analysis has the force of evidence.
2024, 2022 in a big way? Many politicians doubt it. An absolute majority was within reach two years ago, thanks to occasional rapprochements between Macronie and Les Républicains (LR). It seems out of reach today, given the breakup of the hemicycle into three antagonistic blocs. Finally, given the lack of a culture of compromise among a political class brought up on the majority fact. A form of spleen is already gripping elected officials, anxious at the idea of their own erasure. “When you’re a deputy, you want to say that the heart of democratic life is the Assembly. But that’s not true, that’s not going to be written there,” anticipates a minister. “I saw July 7 as an opportunity to parliamentarize the regime,” says an NFP deputy. “But threats of censure at the slightest annoyance don’t go in that direction.” Former UMP leader Jean-François Copé finally fears the impossibility of “passing laws”.
“It will happen elsewhere”
Laurent Wauquiez shares these observations. He believes that only a “technical government”, with a weak political tone, can emerge from this ungovernable Assembly. The president of the Republican Right (DR) group has made a notable return to the chamber, but is already looking elsewhere. “Despite his position, he does not want to be locked into parliamentary debates with their interest and their limits, notes a close friend. There are milestones where he will have to be there. For the rest, it will happen elsewhere, on the ground and in the media.” In 2017, Edouard Philippe theorized that Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen should be in the Assembly. What does he believe today, he who chose to remain mayor of Le Havre after the dissolution?
A blocked Assembly. With political weight inversely proportional to its eruptiveness. This presentiment is based on a cold analysis of the configuration at the Palais Bourbon. Among elected officials, it also takes the form of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Of a hidden wish, because the quest for compromise does not embrace the political class. Three years before the presidential election, everyone wants to preserve their doctrinal purity. Not to get bogged down in legislative negotiations, as much as a rhetoric of betrayal – “apparatus agreements”, “combination” – accompanies them. “Nobody wants to govern and take on difficult decisions, notes Renew MEP Gilles Boyer. Everyone wants to be an opponent, this is not healthy and risks making us lose two years.”
La France insoumise is pushing Lucie Castets’ candidacy for Matignon, but her intransigence – “the entire NFP program, nothing but the NFP program” – casts doubt on her desire to exercise power. Laurent Wauquiez mimes the spirit of responsibility with his “legislative pact” but refuses any government coalition in order to embody the alternation. The RN is looking over the window. The far-right party refused to enter Matignon in the absence of an absolute majority. Defeated at the polls, it is focusing on its internal restructuring. Its number 2 Louis Aliot is already making the preparation of the “next legislative elections” a priority. Far from the work to come at the Palais Bourbon. Finally, we must listen to this deputy Ensemble pour la République (EPR) who would not say no to an opposition cure. “In the center, we always bear the responsibility for compromises and we end up being seen as technocrats. In the opposition, we carry a stronger and more political message.” She spoke about it to Gabriel Attal, who was less convinced by this thesis.
“Opinion against the Assembly”
Sometimes Gérald Darmanin varies. The resigning Minister of the Interior is said to have wanted to stay in government after Gabriel Attal took over the Renaissance group. In the middle of summer, the man was considering regaining the status of opponent in this elusive Assembly. He even drew a theory from it. It would sometimes be necessary to play “public opinion against the Assembly” in the hemicycle, since it would only be an imperfect representation of a France on the right. It would be necessary to bring strong ideas there – even if it means suffering defeats – and not sink into permanent compromise.
What does France think? Doesn’t its refusal of pension reform put it on the left? Or does its firmness on sovereign issues put it on the right? At the dawn of a presidential pre-campaign, each camp is finally overplaying its ideological victory to limit concessions deemed to be out of step with majority opinion. “I don’t believe in the fable that the French are asking us to all work together, and we’re going to take each other by the hand and make a big round,” judges a minister. “I don’t know a right-wing voter who would be delighted with a grand coalition with the left and vice versa. This vaguely seductive fable signals the ideological death of political parties.”
At the risk of limiting the role of Parliament in political life. Now, and after? An EPR MP is already alarmed by a paralysis opening a “boulevard towards something vertical and authoritarian” in three years. “The parliamentarians are paving the way for a government by decree of the next President of the Republic, worries the former Minister of Justice and professor of public law Jean-Jacques Urvoas. The Assembly cannot ask to be respected if it does not show itself to be respectable.” To be, it will have to prove its usefulness.
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