This marks a new strategic divergence with LFI. On Monday, September 17, PS deputies chose to work for a debate to take place in the Assembly on the dismissal of the President of the Republic, but will then vote “unanimously” against a procedure “doomed to failure”. L’Express takes stock of this text that is agitating the left.
Where is the procedure?
The internal debates were “intense” but “interesting”, a source in the socialist group said after nearly three hours of discussions. A decisive meeting for the impeachment proposal, tabled by La France Insoumise and signed by “81 deputies”.
This is on the agenda of the Bureau of the Assembly, the highest executive body of the lower house, which must decide on Tuesday from 09:30 on its admissibility, so that it can be sent to the Laws Committee. The Bureau should therefore, barring any surprises, vote for it. The left, with a narrow majority in this body (12 seats out of 22), could hardly afford to do without the three socialist representatives. Enough to put the socialists under pressure from their rebellious allies within the NFP, so as not to obstruct the debate.
What do the leaders of the left say?
The leader of the Insoumis Jean-Luc Mélenchon welcomed “great news” on X, believing that “the refusal of the decision of universal suffrage will not have remained without consequences for Macron”.
The Socialist group side judged in a press release that “the office of the National Assembly should not be entrusted with the role of judge of the political opportunity of this initiative”, signed by enough deputies and “motivated”. “But we have reaffirmed very strongly the fact that we do not support this procedure”, insisted to the AFP the leader of the group Boris Vallaud, confirming that his deputies would vote “unanimously” against it in committee as well as in the hemicycle if necessary.
Does the text have a chance of success?
The text of the rebels states in particular that Emmanuel Macron’s refusal to appoint Lucie Castets, NFP candidate, to Matignon constitutes “a serious breach of the duty to respect the will expressed by universal suffrage”, arguing that the left-wing alliance came out on top in the legislative elections (193 seats).
Like LFI, the socialists are attacking Emmanuel Macron’s refusal, accusing him of contributing “to the distrust between citizens and the executive power”. But unlike their allies, they describe the procedure as “doomed to failure”. Long and difficult to complete, it would ultimately require the approval of two-thirds of the parliamentarians of the Assembly and the Senate, meeting in the High Court.
A challenge when the parliamentary left is not united on the issue, and the right, back in the saddle with the arrival of Michel Barnier at Matignon, has few reasons to vote for it, beyond even reservations on the substance. “It’s a chimera,” also judged an RN executive on Saturday. “And in the end this rejection will offer the President a re-legitimization that he does not deserve,” judged the first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure on X.
A speech rejected by the president of the LFI deputies Mathilde Panot on Monday, who considered it “entirely possible to go all the way with this impeachment procedure”, if all the parliamentarians outside the presidential camp supported her.
But a passage in the Laws Committee will above all be an opportunity for LFI to increase the pressure and call on public opinion to witness, with the rebellious elected representatives eagerly relaying a petition for dismissal, the counter of which displayed more than 305,000 signatures on Monday. And a vote would certainly test the unity of the New Popular Front even more, while socialists and rebellious people want to embody leadership on the left.
“The emergency lies elsewhere. The forces of the left must concentrate on the battles that will weigh on the daily lives of French women and men,” declared the socialist deputies on Monday, calling for a focus on the lower house: “power is no longer at the Élysée, it is in Parliament.”