Considered for a time by the macronists as an auxiliary force in the National Assembly, this group of around twenty elected officials now intends to bring down Elisabeth Borne by tabling a motion of censure which is intended to be cross-partisan. He also intends to recover new disappointed LRs or Renaissance in his pocket.
Four little letters unknown to the general public that give the government cold sweats. The Liot group, which stands for Libertés, Indépendants, Outre-mer et Territoires, will file a motion of censure to try to overthrow Elisabeth Borne in the coming days and believes that it can convince widely, from the Nupes, to the RN via the LRs.
Centrists, socialists and ex-macronists
It must be said that the twenty elected members of this group of deputies brew very broadly. First of all, there are former UDIs who have not had a group since 2017 and who had already met within Libertés et territories in the last term of office.
Among them, the headliner Charles de Courson, a well-respected public finance specialist in the National Assembly, who has come into much light in recent days by announcing the floor on this transpartisan motion.
Alongside this taulier of the Parliament, elected for the first time in 1997, there are also former macronists like the Breton Paul Molac or the Guadeloupean Olivier Serva, who had stood out by launching “you’re going to close it”, to his ex-colleague Sylvain Maillard on unvaccinated caregivers.
Former socialists are also Liot, like Jean-Louis Bricout or Benjamin Saint-Huile. In addition, most of the elected ultramarines of the Palais-Bourbon sit there, composing no less than a quarter of the troops, often novices in the Assembly.
Macron and his “alliance” proposal
Three elected officials from Corsica are also part of it, facilitating relations with the Horizons group led by Laurent Marcangeli, elected from Ajaccio. What offer some hope to the macronie at the start of his term of office, in search of allies in the absence of an absolute majority. Last October, Emmanuel Macron quotes them no less than twice in a long interview on France 2.
“They sent a clear message by not voting on the motions of censure tabled on the budgets”, noted the president, seeing in it a possibility of “working” together on the reforms to come, even to the point of wanting to build “a alliance”.
It is that there, where the Nupes and the RN had already tried to bring down the government during the first 49.3 on the budget in the fall, the Liots had remained very in the background, not voting for any of them. What offer a little optimism to the government.
“Good luck anticipating their vote”
However, looking at the details of the votes, it is clear that in a group where the freedom to vote is total, these deputies were very far from supporting the bills of the majority. On the unemployment insurance reform, 12 voted against, 8 abstained and only 2 voted for.
Same observation for the purchasing power bill, the first text of the mandate, where 15 of them had not taken part in the vote.
“The Liots, we don’t understand anything about it. It’s illegible. Good luck anticipating their vote”, squeaked a figure from Macronie last January with BFMTV.com.
“An unacceptable threat of dissolution”
Bertrand Pancher, the president of the group, had moreover announced the color in the columns of L’Opinion last November. “If one day we vote for a motion of censure, it will be ours”, had then advanced this former close friend of Jean-Louis Borloo.
The group now points to “an unacceptable threat of dissolution” to justify this motion of censure. Emmanuel Macron had waved the possibility of calling new legislation on Wednesday evening in the event of rejection of the reform by the deputies, without obviously going to the end of his approach this Thursday afternoon with a 49.3.
“We cannot be told that we are going to dissolve as soon as the National Assembly does not vote as the Élysée wishes. Otherwise, Parliament is useless”, we explain in the entourage of number 1 of the band.
“It is a deeply unfair reform” which is illustrated by “a denial of democracy”, advanced for his part Charles de Courson on BFMTV this Friday.
Seduce disappointed LRs and macronists
To succeed in overthrowing the government, the motion of censure of the Liot group must now gather 287 votes (and not 289, 2 seats of deputies were vacant Editor’s note). To achieve this, the motion would have to be voted on by all the Nupes, RN deputies and at least thirty elected LRs, a very important figure for the right.
If the movement is very divided on the opportunity of retirement at 64, Olivier Marleix, the president of the group, brandished the threat of exclusion for the elected officials who would vote for it.
Within Liot, we are already projecting ourselves into the future. “Everyone is welcome in our ranks,” says a group employee. In the viewfinder: LR deputies but also disappointed Renaissance.
