The French Government overcomes a motion of censure from the left supported by Le Pen | International

The French Government has passed without problems this Monday the first motions of censure that it faced in this parliamentary course. The extreme right of Marine Le Pen has added its votes to the motion presented by the left in response to the approval by decree of the 2023 budgets. Without success.

Although the text has collected 239 votes, it has been insufficient to reach an absolute majority of 289. The Government, therefore, continues. Another motion proposed by the extreme right has obtained 90 votes. Later another one from the left had to be voted with a predictably negative result.

The votes this Monday were a formality. The New Popular Ecological and Social Union (NUPES) —the coalition of socialists, environmentalists and communists under the leadership of the anti-capitalist and eurosceptic left of Jean-Luc Mélenchon— did not plan to vote in favor of the National Regroupment (RN) initiative, the far-right party of Marine Le Pen.

Le Pen, on the other hand, announced in the early afternoon the vote in favor of the NUPES motion, to the bewilderment of the left-wing bench. A Photo What will remain of the day is that of the left and the extreme right voting together for a text to precipitate a change of government.

It will probably not be the last time an attempt is made to overthrow Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and her ministers with this method. Since they lost the absolute majority in the June legislative elections, Borne and the president, Emmanuel Macron, face a chamber with more deputies on the opposition bench than on the government bench.

The first block of the National Assembly is the macronista, with 250 deputies. The NUPES has 151. The RN, 89. The Republicans (LR), 62.

Although the NUPES and the RN vote together, they do not reach an absolute majority either. They would need LR, the old party of the moderate right, now in decline, which for the moment refuses to support any motion of censure.

“We have been experiencing an economic and energy crisis for a few months, inflation reactivates the social crisis”, justified 53 LR deputies in a forum published this Sunday in the newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche. And they concluded: “Adding a political and institutional crisis would be irresponsible.”

If one day a motion of censure were successful, Macron would have to appoint a new government. But he has said that, in such a case, what he would do would be to dissolve the National Assembly and call early legislative elections.

“In the National Regroupment we are not afraid of threats of dissolution,” Le Pen said in the speech in which he defended his motion of censure and announced that he would also support that of the left.

LA NUPES and the RN decided to present their respective motions after, last Wednesday, Borne announced that he would impose the budgets through article 49.3 of the Constitution. This article allows the parliamentary debates to be settled and the law to be adopted directly. The opposition can only stop the rule in question by presenting and winning a motion of no confidence.

On Thursday, after approving the Social Security budgets with 49.3, NUPES presented another motion of censure, which must be debated and voted on Monday night. In July, NUPES presented a first vote of confidence. He obtained 146 supports, insufficient for his objective.

The current parliamentary turmoil reflects the result of the legislative elections in June, a few weeks after Macron’s re-election against Le Pen in the presidential elections. The macronistas, although they got more deputies than anyone else, lost the absolute majority that during the first five years had allowed the president to impose his laws in Parliament without obstacles.

Governing with a relative majority forces the president, either to seek alliances with the opposition, or to make use of article 49.3. The problem for the Government is that, since the constitutional reform of 2008, 49.3 can only be used for budget laws and, for the rest of the regulations, only once per period of parliamentary sessions, which coincides more or less with the school year. .

“[Macron] he is in the position of a hunter who does not have infinite ammunition”, he opined, in an interview with Le Journal du Dimancheformer conservative president Nicolas Sarkozy. Founder of LR but an ally of Macron, this leader advises him to build a coalition with the moderate right: “He could seek a political agreement in due form with all the wills willing to constitute a majority in the best interest of the country.”

The time for coalition has not come. France will continue for now with a weak government and without a stable majority to adopt laws. And with an even weaker opposition, too disparate to unite and bring down the government, or really worry Macron.

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