They are finally 19 LR deputies to have voted for the overthrow of the government, thus disobeying the instructions of Eric Ciotti. Enough to show the fractures at the heart of the right-wing parliamentary group.
The political earthquake was near. Thanks to the decried procedure of 49.3, which allows a text to be adopted without a vote unless the government is censured, the pension reform was officially adopted Monday in Parliament. But this parliamentary epilogue was played out by a tighter vote than expected, with in particular 19 Republican deputies – out of 61 – who brought their votes to the cross-partisan censure motion.
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In other words, it is 19 elected LRs who dissociate themselves from the line carried by party president Eric Ciotti. The latter tries, however, to look good. “There are 42 LR deputies who followed our advice, that is to say a very large majority of the group. Republicans have been consistent“, he assured, Monday, March 20.
But where is the coherence when a third of a group is opposed to a reform which corresponds almost to the program of the party? For Alexandre Vincendet, deputy of the Rhône, we need a “clarification” and now raises the question of the exclusion of slingers.
“Obviously, we no longer think the same thing. We are able to defend things, validate them together and some, by small personal calculations, change their minds.”
Alexandre Vincendetat franceinfo
“I do not see LR separating from a third of its deputies”
Several party executives are still calling for the head of the chief rebel, Aurélien Pradié. However, the latter does not intend to leave the LR boat voluntarily, just like his colleague Pierre-Henri Dumont, deputy general secretary of the party. “Of course we can stay! I do not see LR separating from a third of its deputies. Above all, it means that there are method problems, and that, probably, we will have to work a lot more in anticipation and not just when the bill is on the table and we don’t really know what to do.“, he tackles.
With “a third of the deputies, we cannot be fired, we have the totem of immunity“, adds one of his comrades. This file as the positioning vis-à-vis the executive, are on the menu of a strategic council at the headquarters of the Republicans on Tuesday, during a meeting which is announced “very tense“.