In a short televised address, President Emmanuel Macron took note of the unfavorable results of the legislative elections and especially took to witness the opinion that the oppositions would block the National Assembly if they did not accept his outstretched hand.
He did not even mention his Prime Minister. Emmanuel Macron has never been a big sharer in his televised speeches but, this time, his head of government Elisabeth Borne, suspended since Sunday, would surely have needed the support of the President of the Republic. For three days, the elected Calvados has not only been the target of opposition – Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen have been demanding her scalp morning, noon and evening – she has also been attacked in her own camp. Her ministers Bruno Le Maire and Gérald Darmanin do not hesitate behind the scenes to judge her not in her place. The MoDem’s ally François Bayrou went there with a bazooka against a “too techno” Prime Minister who preferred a more political profile resembling like two drops of water… to himself! Emmanuel Macron has decided to maintain it without giving him a gift.
By giving the impression of passing it by losses and profits, Emmanuel Macron did not help his Prime Minister who is playing his all by trying since Monday to form “majorities of action”. Clearly by looking for the forty deputies who could, on a case-by-case basis, vote on government texts in the National Assembly. On television, the president could have mentioned that he had entrusted this mission to his Prime Minister. But it is stronger than him: there is always hyperpresident in Emmanuel Macron.
An eight-minute speech
In his eight-minute speech, he noted that no political force had obtained an absolute majority and heard the choice of the French to want him to govern and legislate “differently”. But before delivering his analysis of the new political situation and the results of his consultations with party leaders, he began by recalling his “legitimacy” as re-elected president. He did not really dwell on the reasons for his partial defeat in the legislative elections and even minimized the difficulty of having only a relative majority. He recalled that this was the case in a large number of European parliamentary democracies.
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He reviewed the various possible options for “building” “new compromises”. He first dismissed the scenario of national unity envisaged by François Bayrou but which he does not consider justified. He retained two options: the coalition and the case by case. The second solution seems to suit him. “It is possible to find a larger and clearer majority,” he said confidently. He put forward the figure of about thirty deputies who would be missing. Which is not the reality because it would take 45 to reach the bar of 289 synonymous with an absolute majority. Except that the executive is already certain to have already recovered about fifteen. If he called for going beyond “quarrels and political postures”, he laid down fairly strict conditions: first that the proposals of the oppositions fall within the framework of the presidential project, that they do not add or add debts , nor taxes. He finally posed a kind of ultimatum to the oppositions by giving them 48 hours to give their position. These two correspond to his absence due to the European Summit.
Take the French to witness an inevitable disorder in the Assembly
Verticality therefore remains the prerogative of this president not really made for the compromise he calls for. In most neighboring parliamentary systems, negotiations often last several weeks or even months. Unless Emmanuel Macron has already understood that he will have difficulty finding these forty deputies and that his intention was with this speech to take the French to witness to record the inevitable mess in the Hemicycle. The tactic is sewn with white thread, Emmanuel Macron trying to blame the blocking of the National Assembly on his opposition. In other words, he wants to set a date and lay a first stone on the path that will lead to a dissolution on the horizon of six months to a year. A double-edged tactic because for the moment 71% French people are very satisfied, according to an Elabe / BFMTV poll, that the president is deprived of an absolute majority.