Marine Le Pen’s far right slipped from the most coveted post in France’s National Assembly on Thursday: chairing the strategic finance commission that oversees budgets. The one-year post was relieved of him by Éric Cocquerel, MEP for France Insoumise and member of the left-wing Nupes Alliance, who celebrated his election as the first legislative victory of an unprecedentedly fragmented chamber and without an absolute majority. A parliamentary conundrum that will force President Emmanuel Macron to negotiate text by text any law or reform he wants to implement in his second term, with the help of his Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, whom he has confirmed in his position despite the legislative fiasco.
Up to three rounds of voting were required to reach the result, which Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) hastily denounced as a “manoeuvre” to prevent him from taking the lead of a commission traditionally reserved for the first opposition force. A title that has been disputed since the general elections in June by the extreme right, which with its 89 MPs has won more MPs than ever in its history, and the left-wing alliance, which has 151 seats in the chamber but is divided into several factions (the largest, France Insumisa, has only 75 seats). In addition to its symbolism, the chairmanship of the Finance Commission allows access to information protected by tax secrecy.
Less than 24 hours before that landmark vote, the same left-wing MPs who are now claiming victory had in turn denounced the election of two members of Le Pen’s party for two of the Chamber’s six vice-presidents as another failure of the kordon sanitaire. To reach this milestone in a parliament where the far right has been virtually irrelevant for decades, they needed the support of the Macronist majority, which in turn managed to sway former minister Yaël Braun-Pivet as the first female president in the parliament’s history National Assembly and the Conservative Republicans (LR).
Macron’s party “put the RN on the vote to ease far-right MPs’ access to the vice-president of the National Assembly. The masks fall », criticized the deputy and general secretary of the ecologists, Julien Bayou, the maneuver. The situation “shows the new National Assembly elected by the French (…). It is not our job to elect our opposition but to impose the will of the French,” replied the Macronist majority, which has a total of 250 deputies (far from the 289 of the absolute majority).
Beyond the results, these first votes — with the bipartisan voting alliances, accusations of breaking the traditional Republican front against the far right, and this week’s power struggles — are a first indication of how complicated it will be to keep Macron in power in his second and last term without the cushion of an absolute majority of his first five years.
And the obstacles don’t end at the doors of the Palais Bourbon, home of the National Assembly. Adding to the parliamentary struggles are the internal problems of a government that, just over a month after its formation, is already preparing for a first transformation.
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Macron stipulated that any minister who ran for a seat and did not get it had to resign, and this principle has led to the overthrow of three members of his cabinet: Health Minister Brigitte Bourgignon, Ecological Transition leader Amélie de Montchalin, and the Secretary of State for the Sea, Justine Bénin, have to vacate their posts. Also on the tightrope is the Minister for Solidarity, Autonomy and Disabilities, Damien Abad. This former conservative heavyweight has been accused by several women, through the press and anonymously, of sexual abuse or attempted rape. So far, his boss Borne has refused to fire him on the grounds that there is no trial against him. But things could change quickly: Paris prosecutors announced on Wednesday the opening of an investigation after a complaint was filed Monday about attempted rape in 2010 by an alleged victim of Abad.
The Prime Minister announced this Thursday via Agence France Presse that she would make her “general political statement” on July 6, first before the National Assembly and later before the Senate, setting out her roadmap for the next five years. By then, Borne is said to have announced the reorganization of his cabinet.
What the prime minister has yet to reveal is whether, as demanded by the left, she will agree to a vote of confidence in the National Assembly after her speech. A negative vote – which is not impossible after losing an absolute majority – would mean the resignation of his entire government, including the first female leader in three decades. His position had been in doubt after the general election fiasco, but in an interview with AFP last weekend, Macron assured that he had decided to “reaffirm his confidence in Borne” and entrust him with a “new government of action”. . , whose composition they would review together after their return this Thursday from their international week of G7 summits, first in Germany and then at NATO in Madrid. The work has only just begun.
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