The French Government remains on its feet, albeit fragile and shaky, and President Emmanuel Macron also remains yellow. This is the immediate consequence of the motion of censure voted yesterday in the National Assembly, which was only nine votes away from being adopted. The country is immersed in a major political crisis.
Macron had never been in such a precarious situation since he came to power in May 2017. 278 deputies voted in favor of censure, 9 less than what was needed (287) for him to win. This margin, so small compared to the forecasts, was a disastrous surprise for the Elisi. It meant that many deputies of the Republicans (LR, traditional right) voted for the motion, disobeying their leaders. After what happened yesterday and since the Macronists lack their own majority, the Government could fall at any moment.
If the no-confidence motion had succeeded, the pension reform, approved on Thursday through the use of article 49.3 of the Constitution, which considered it validated automatically, without a vote, would have been annulled. Another motion, from the National Regroupment (RN, extreme right), was voted on later, but obtained only 94 votes. The left did not support him.
A few minutes after it became known that the Government had been saved by the minimum, people began to gather in Place Vauban, in Paris, near the Invalides, in an unauthorized protest demonstration. The square is not far from the National Assembly and the Matignon Palace, seat of the Prime Minister. Almost every night there are protests and clashes with riot police. The new political situation represents an important public order risk due to radicalization.
Such a tight victory left a very bitter aftertaste for the Government and for Macron himself because his isolation has been highlighted and it is taking place in the middle of mobilizations and strikes that do not stop. This Thursday there will be another day of protest on a national scale.
In the National Assembly there were many absences among the parliamentarians of the groups that support Macron, visibly uncomfortable with what has happened in the last few days and the fact that the reform did not come to a vote.
The centrist deputy Charles de Courson, dean of the chamber, was in charge of defending the first motion on behalf of his parliamentary group, an amalgamation called Llibertats, Independents, Ultramar i Territories (LIOT). De Courson was very harsh with the Government and with Macron for having imposed, in his opinion, an unnecessary, unfair and full of inconsistencies pension reform, and for having done so “distorting the spirit of the Constitution” . De Courson regretted that the Elysee did not have the courage to accept that the reform be voted on. “They probably would have lost that vote, but it is the rule in a democracy”, added the deputy.
The head of the Macronist group, Renaissance, Aurore Bergé, devoted a good part of her speech to blasting the opposition for agreeing despite the enormous ideological distance between the extreme right and the radical left . “Yes, a motion of censure becomes, de facto, a common program”, said Bergé amid general criticism.
Mathilde Panot, from La França Insubmisa (LFI), spoke on behalf of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes), the left-wing coalition that ran in the elections under the leadership of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “The people look at them like they look at someone who has betrayed them,” said Panot, who cited severe articles from the foreign press about Macron’s handling of pensions. “For many, their Government is dead”, said the deputy. When the result of the vote was announced, the left-wing deputies stood up and showed a banner with the following text: “Cita al carrer”.
In her reply, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, reproached the opposition for the duplicity of its behavior, having obstructed the reform debate with thousands of amendments while, at the same time, accusing the Government of having resorted to to the expeditious method of approving the project by decree. According to Borne, the truth must be told to the French, that the pay-as-you-go pension system can only be sustained if more years are worked. In reality, you should have worked for 45 years, but the Government considered it excessive and reduced it to 43 years of contribution to collect the entire pension.
