It is 4 p.m., this Monday, March 20, when the veteran of the Assembly rises, head held high and face focused, to the podium. Elected continuously for almost thirty years, the venerable Charles de Courson has, he hopes, a date with history. The pet peeve of the presidential camp, the deputy for Marne carries on his shoulders all the hopes of the President of the Republic’s critics: it is he who embodies, and must defend before his peers, the transpartisan motion of censure signed by eighty – ten deputies and tabled by his parliamentary group Libertés, Indépendants, Outre-mer et Territoires (LIOT). This famous motion tabled the day after the passage in force of the executive on the question of pensions which, for several days, has given cold sweats to all of Macronie. The issue is not insignificant: in the event of adoption, the government of Elisabeth Borne would be purely and simply overthrown and the reform buried.
Without trembling, de Courson – who a year ago supported Valérie Pécresse and her retirement plan at 65 – delivers an agreed speech without much relief. Defending a “Social Republic” and an “free society” where everyone must be able to choose the moment of their retirement, and tackling the “denial of democracy” to which the macronist camp would have engaged. In front of him, in the first row, the head of government does not blink. At the two extremes, the National Rally but especially La France Insoumise drink whey. In the Telegram and WhatsApp loops of parliamentarians, we count and we recount again. How many LRs will vote for this motion against the advice of their leaders? In the entourage of Eric Ciotti, twenty minutes before the opening of the discussions, it is estimated that they will be 18, more than the first forecasts which revolved around ten. Most are shivering: “I don’t feel it terrible…”slips an elected Macronist.
The sequel after the ad
“49.3, 47.1, 44.3… Macron is in “overspeed””
Severe warning for Macron
But three hours later, Macronie breathes. Elisabeth Borne was not overthrown. The disaster is not far away. 19 deputies from LR having finally voted in favor of the motion defended by Charles de Courson (who, in total, collected 278 favorable votes), he will not have missed ” what “ nine votes for the macronist edifice to have one knee on the ground. The motion of censure of the RN having been rejected in the process, the text of the pensions is officially adopted. In the Hemicycle, the ministers find a serene mien. Mired for two months in a very unpopular reform project, the majority offers a little respite. But the warning for Emmanuel Macron remains severe.
However, the atmosphere was not chaotic on Monday in the Hemicycle. Neither noise nor fury: the face of the Assembly was almost the opposite of that displayed last Thursday, the day the Prime Minister brandished the weapon of 49.3. The successive speeches of the group presidents took place in relative calm, with the notable exception of that of the macronist Aurore Bergé. The president of the Renaissance deputies has, it is true, seized the opportunity to target her adversaries again: the far right, which she compared to the “mime Marceau” (“It gesticulates but it does not speak”) and the Nupes whom she accused of being a “footstep” for the frontist party. Apart from a few outbursts, the session was not dominated by heckling. Even the ex-Rebellious Adrien Quatennens, who took the rostrum on behalf of the “non-registered”was able to calmly unfold its anti-government argument.
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Borne a sursis?
At the heart of the debates, Elisabeth Borne was not spared, far from it. Including by its partners. Obviously not having completely digested the dispute which opposed him to Eric Dupond-Moretti, the boss of the LR deputies Olivier Marleix, who had nevertheless called for a vote in favor of the pension reform, warned her: “The arm of honour, Madam Prime Minister, is not a method of government”. “You failed to gather, to convince and you gave in to the facility by avoiding the sanction of the vote”, also launched Charles de Courson at him. Is this a sign of further concern? Moreover, he could hardly escape the Prime Minister that the entire majority was not united behind his case: a large number of majority deputies had not made the trip to the Hemicycle on Monday (only the votes in favor of the motion of censure were counted).
How can the head of government hold on now? The pressure is now great and the hours that follow promise to be decisive. In the evening, Borne has planned, according to several sources, to bring together at Matignon all the presidents of majority groups (Renaissance, Horizons and Modem), as well as the president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet. In the process, the Elysée announced that Emmanuel Macron will receive his Prime Minister this Tuesday morning.
Can Elisabeth Borne still hold out? Behind the scenes of his awful week
Several macronists present this Monday in the bays of the Palais-Bourbon hoped, however, that this day could end this painful sequence of retreats. “We must enter a new political moment”, estimates the deputy Renaissance of Paris Sylvain Maillard. In the meantime, everywhere in France, from Rennes to Paris, from Nice to Strasbourg, demonstrations broke out at the time of the official adoption of the pension reform.
