While Michel Barnier’s government is threatened by a motion of censure, Marine Le Pen reminded the Prime Minister of the conditions for the RN not to overthrow the executive this Monday, November 25. The standoff continues.
To censor or not to censor? This is the question that threatens the government of Michel Barnier, especially when it is asked of Marine Le Pen and the deputies of the National Rally (RN). If all political forces have indicated whether or not they would support a motion of censure in the event of the use of 49.3 by the Prime Minister to force the adoption of the 2025 finance bill, the far-right party has not not yet decided. However, the votes of the 124 elected RN members of the National Assembly are decisive in overthrowing the government or, on the contrary, sparing it and leaving it in place.
Received by Michel Barnier in Matignon this Monday, November 25, Marine Le Pen confirmed his party’s position regarding the finance bill at the end of the interview: “If the budget remains as it is”, the RN will vote on the motion of censure which will certainly be tabled at the time of adopt the text especially if a 49.3 is drawn. But the member for Pas-de-Calais “repeated for the umpteenth time” what the party’s conditions were so that it would not overthrow the government. She cited several measures considered “red lines” that must be removed from the bill for her side to pass it. Among these red lines: “the planned increase of 6 billion in the price of electricity”, “the failure to make savings on a certain number of parts of the functioning of the State” and “hitting the businesses, retirees.
Michel Barnier finds himself in a delicate situation: he must give assurances to the RN to prevent the party from supporting a motion of censure without giving in to all the demands of the far right. The Prime Minister was “serene and open to dialogue” according to those close to him who recalled the head of government’s negotiating skills, but according to Marine Le Pen he was “courteous and firm in his positions”. The negotiations do not seem to have made it possible to advance the positions of either party, according to Marine Le Pen: “We will see if today’s remarks make headway but nothing is less certain” . A statement which implies that for the moment the Rn’s support for a motion of censure is entirely possible.
The hopes of the Barnier government
Threatened with censorship, Michel Barnier is considering how to avoid seeing his government overthrown. He could choose to negotiate on another ground by giving guarantees to the RN regarding a new immigration law in exchange for Marine Le Pen’s abandonment of her budgetary demands. The chances that the RN will give up its ideas concerning the budget, savings and the purchasing power of the French, however, remain low.
The Prime Minister could also buy himself time by not giving in to the demands of the RN, but not firmly opposing them either. The finance bill must be voted on on December 12 in the Senate, the vote for its adoption in Parliament is therefore scheduled for mid-December. By then, the far-right party could have revised its positions as has already been the case in recent weeks: the elected representatives of the RN have sometimes assured their support for a motion of censure, sometimes brandished this possibility as a simple threat . Marine Le Pen, however, assures that she has always held the same position: opposition to the budget as it is currently thought of by the government. But even an advisor to the MP suggested to BFMTV that everything could still change: “I’m not sure that the decision [de Marine Le Pen] will be taken immediately after the Matignon meeting. The answer will be given in a few weeks, especially since the text can be modified until the last moment.
The government camp is also banking on the difficulties caused by a motion of censure and which could dissuade the RN from overthrowing the government. “I don’t believe for a second that [les élus du RN] vote on a motion of censure 15 days before Christmas, this would plunge France, without a government and without a budget, into economic chaos that we have never seen, and the RN knows it very well”, estimated a Macronist deputy from Franceinfo. Others think, on the contrary, that a resignation from the government does not scare the far right and can on the contrary serve its ambitions, as LR deputy Antoine Vermorel-Marques indicated to the same media: “In a logic of overthrowing table to precipitate a presidential election, she will press the censorship button whenever she wants”, advances for her part. “Especially since according to several studies, a (small) majority of French people are in favor of government censorship: 51 % according to the survey Elabe for BFMTV published last week and 53% according to the Ifop barometer of Sunday newspaper published on November 23.
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10:29 – Immigration and proportional representation discussed during discussions
If the finance bill was undoubtedly the subject discussed at greatest length during the meeting, Marine Le Pen and Michel Barnier also raised the idea of a new immigration law. “My position has not evolved, any more than that of the Prime Minister,” declared the RN MP on this point, adding that the immigration law announced by the government seemed “extremely prudent” to her.
The establishment of proportional representation in legislative elections also came on the table and the Prime Minister “once again expressed the fact that he was not opposed to thinking about it”, said Marine Le Pen according to whom “the path seems long anyway.” “We also discussed agriculture, again without urgent measures other than opposition to Mercosur,” finally indicated the MP.
10:21 – An agreement between Le Pen and Barnier to avoid censorship? “Nothing is less certain”
“The Prime Minister appeared to me to be both courteous and firm in his positions” during the interview, indicated Marine Le Pen. “We will see if today’s remarks make headway but nothing is less certain,” she added, implying that the chances of the RN’s demands being respected and therefore the motion of censure not supported by the far right remained minimal. Marine Le Pen also reaffirmed that “if the budget remains as it is”, the RN will vote for a motion of censure.
10:15 – Le Pen repeats her “red lines” for the “umpteenth time”
Marine Le Pen left Matignon after a good hour of meeting with the Prime Minister, Michel Barnier. “I repeated for the umpteenth time what the red lines of the National Rally were,” she explained to the press, judging several measures as “inadmissible” such as the “increase in the tax on electricity” or again the “deindexation of pensions”. Red lines expressed several times by the RN which says “to bring savings” via other measures including the review of the functioning of the State via certain organizations whose budgets should decrease according to Marine Le Pen or even by reducing the budget dedicated to State medical aid (AME).