Highly undecided day for Richard Ferrand: proposed by Emmanuel Macron to chair the Constitutional Council, he will have to convince parliamentarians not to hinder a candidacy weakened by cold reception, if not freezing at LR.
“The Constitutional Council must judge again in law and not be the legal armed wing of a left ideology […] What he would undoubtedly be tomorrow if Richard Ferrand was appointed, “launched this Tuesday, February 18, in the hemicycle Ian Boucard (republican right deputy). A heavy charge which augurs for hours of complicated hearings for the former president of the Assembly.
The rules of the game are mild: three -fifths would have to be expressed in the assembly commissions of the Assembly and the Senate oppose its appointment to hinder it. The ballot, with secret bulletin, which favors emancipations, is nevertheless very undecided. Due to the uncertainty about the voting of LR senators, and because each abstention would lower the fateful bar: if the 122 parliamentarians were expressed, 74 votes would need to prevent appointment.
The “internal LR battle”?
The former socialist then macronist deputy (2012-2022), who helped Emmanuel Macron to enter the Elysée, started his hearing in front of his former room at 8:30 am. The fragile Alliance Macronie-LR will have no weight: the deputies of the group of Laurent Wauquiez announced that they would vote against. The right of the right party did not hold back his blows this Tuesday with regard to Richard Ferrand, denouncing before the press “an ethical problem”, “a problem of impartiality” or “a problem because He has no legal expertise “. Laurent Wauquiez still considered that the arrival of Richard Ferrand would confirm “a constitutional council which no longer judges in law but with an ideological drift”. “They will not vote against Ferrand but Macron,” annoys a macronist framework.
A socialist tenor sees in the opposition of the deputies the Republicans an effect of the “internal LR battle”. “Wauquiez wants to send a slap to Macron at all costs, and in the alternative to the government by saying ‘you see, we are the real opponents while Retailleau accommodates Ferrand'”, he analyzes.
An “unhealthy cronyism”
Richard Ferrand should be able to count on most of the ex-majority (EPR-Modem-horizons). But he will see the left voting massively against him, as in the Senate. She criticizes him for his proximity to the Head of State, a legal competence deemed too weak (an argument also advanced by jurists), or his indictment for “illegal taking of interests” in the case of mutuals in Brittany , despite a dismissal for prescription. “Macronist of the first hour, Secretary General of En Marche, Minister, President of the LREM group, more indebted than lawyer, his profile questions,” said on Tuesday in questions to the government Jérémie Iordanoff.
Because between the appointment of jurists or policies to the Constitutional Council, the debate is not new. The same criticisms had notably been expressed against Jean-Louis Debré, appointed in 2007 by Jacques Chirac, of which he was an intimate. Since his arrival at the Elysée, Emmanuel Macron has thus appointed three former ministers – Jacques Mézard in 2019, Jacqueline Gourault in 2022 and therefore Richard Ferrand. “A bad tradition” for the former Keeper of the Seals Jean-Jacques Urvoas “because the Constitutional Council is a Supreme Court. And to judge, it is better to call on judges”. On the contrary, having only law teachers would be a “disaster” for Alain Juppé, “wise” since 2019, because the Council has always had a double jurisdictional and political nature.
This debate is crystallized in any case again around Richard Ferrand, with criticism from the whole political arc. For the socialist Olivier Faure, “there is a serious doubt about the legal skills and impartiality” of Richard Ferrand. The boss of the PS also said that the latter “cannot be president of the Constitutional Council in the morning and the one who whispers to the president in the evening”. “It is the faithful among the faithful (of the president), and that raises questions,” notes the vice-president of the law commission of the assembly, Philippe Gosselin, while the former boss of the deputies LR Olivier Marleix denounced an “unhealthy cronyism”.
Ball in the Senate?
In 2027, “we will have to have an impeccable constitutional council. In terms of independence, expertise. There we lend the side a little,” sighs a minister. A macronist minister is betting on the auditions of the day: “I think he can convince lots of people”.
As for the RN, whose voices could be decisive, he does not reveal his game. If Marine Le Pen denounced the “drift” of policy appointments to the Constitutional Council, the group ensures that the vote will depend on hearings. Is the Constitutional Council a legislator? Should he be a constituent? Should its president take political positions in public? So many questions to which RN deputies hope to see Richard Ferrand answer in the negative. Only certain thing: all the RN commissioners will vote in the same way.
It is perhaps in the Senate that Richard Ferrand will play his appointment at 11 a.m. Macronist executives hope that the influential president of the Senate Gérard Larcher (LR) will have secured right -wing voices, largely in the majority. “I was not asked for anything,” said an LR senator on Tuesday with AFP, judging that the majority of the group sees the Ferrand candidacy negatively. While waiting for the results, potentially at lunchtime, everyone goes from their calculation. A macronist frame “thinks it will pass”. “Unfavorable prognosis,” said a Senator LR on Tuesday evening.
In the shadow of the Ferrand candidacy, two parliamentarians will also play their entry to the Constitutional Council, but only before their respective commissions. Philippe Bas, Senator LR candidate of Gérard Larcher, will most likely pass the obstacle, haloed by a hearty CV and a sharp knowledge of the Constitution. Laurence Vichnievsky, MP MODEM, ex-investigation judge and candidate of Yaël Braun-Pivet, benefits from a reputation as a competent and independent parliamentarian, but leaves with fewer certainties in a more politically fragmented commission.