The French Government is beginning to feel the effects of having lost its absolute majority in the National Assembly. The opposition has managed to eliminate the important article 2 of the health bill that provided for the possibility of reinstating the mandatory covid pass to enter and leave French territory.
The pandemic continues to wreak havoc, although with less media noise and citizen alarm. So far this year, the virus has already claimed more than 30,000 lives in France, and the threshold of 150,000 victims since the start of the crisis has been exceeded. Hence, the Government would like to reserve the possibility, if the situation worsens, of requiring the vaccination certificate again in the short term.
The debate on the bill has been rough, in a tense atmosphere that promises to be the norm in this legislature. Several deputies from Macron’s Renaissance party – formerly La República en Marcha (LREM) – have warned of the danger of the National Assembly becoming more and more like a football stadium, with uncivil behavior, insults and the abandonment of parliamentary courtesies. traditional.
The amputation of article 2 in the health bill, decided by 219 votes in favor against 195 against, has been possible thanks to a conjunctural coalition between deputies of the National Regrouping (RN, extreme right), of Los Republicanos (LR, right) and the New Popular Ecologist and Social Union (Nupes).
The groups that support the president and the government are about forty seats short of having an absolute majority. In the absence of a coalition or legislature agreement with other parties, their hope is to carry out the laws, one by one, with variable pacts. But that entails instability and uncertainty. The government’s fragility may once again be in evidence with the bill to preserve purchasing power, a far-reaching initiative aimed at cushioning the economic damage caused by the war in Ukraine.
