Should the Prime Minister fear the Socialist Party’s motion of censure?

The presence in the new government of resolutely conservative figures like the LR Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau is causing some teeth to grind. The socialists have already indicated that they will file a motion of censure.

Barely revealed, the composition of the Barnier government has provoked a torrent of criticism from the opposition, and the left already wants to overthrow it. The socialist group will file a motion of censure following the Prime Minister’s general policy speech on October 1. The entire left is closing ranks to contest with one voice the legitimacy of his government. “A combination”, ton Jean-Luc Mélenchon who wishes “get rid of it as soon as possible.” “A slap in the face to democracy”, echoes Olivier Faure who even judges that it is “the most reactionary government of the Fifth Republic”! Well, before Bruno Retailleau, the presence at Place Beauvau of Charles Pasqua, Michel Poniatowski or Raymond Marcellin provoked the same cries of outrage from the left… Nevertheless, this team clearly leans to the right and appears very fragile.

His majority is very relative in the National Assembly. The Macronist-right alliance weighs 213 seats, it is the largest of the three blocs in the Assembly, ahead of the left and the extreme right, but it is far from the absolute majority of 289 deputies. The addition of the votes of the New Popular Front and the extreme right would lead to the adoption of the motion of censure, but Olivier Faure himself recognizes that ““It is doomed to failure.” Certainly, the RN also multiplies its criticisms, Marine Le Pen speaks of a “transitional government” and wishes “the shortest possible legislature”, But it is unlikely that the far right will vote for the left’s motion of censure. First, because Marine Le Pen has another emergency.

She is expected in court on Monday, September 30, where she will be tried for embezzlement of public funds in the context of the RN’s fictitious assistants affair, a two-month trial with serious legal threats on the horizon. And then, bringing down the Barnier government now, when a new dissolution cannot take place for ten months, would add chaos to the disorder, which is the image that Marine Le Pen wants to avoid giving. The motion of censure is a delicate weapon to handle, and for the left too. Because submitting them in a flurry, without success, is also proving that we do not have a spare majority. For the time being, rather than fearing a possible addition of the votes of the left and the RN, over which he has no control, Michel Barnier should above all fear the divisions that risk appearing at the very heart of his shaky coalition as soon as the budget debate.