EDITORIAL. Is there a majority in the Assembly?

Is there a majority in the Assembly? The question is crucial for the future of the pension reform and for that of the government. And it arises with all the more vigor as the executive collects disappointments. On Wednesday March 15, it was the nuclear safety reform that was rejected at first reading. The text wanted in particular to hang up the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) within the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), the policeman of the power stations. The opposition denounced a “dismantling”. And the deputies adopted an amendment rejecting this merger. Even more worrying for the government, criticism has come from within the ranks of the majority itself.

This majority, which is only relative, has been put under pressure for weeks, first by the obstruction of the rebellious, then by the moods of LR. And the famous “at the same time” comes back to him as a boomerang. It made it possible to have the text on renewable energies approved thanks to part of the left, and that on the acceleration of nuclear power thanks to a fringe of the right. Except that the right and the left sometimes find, “at the same time”, reasons to oppose each other. This is the case with the text on immigration. LR denounces the new residence permit for “jobs in tension”, the left castigates the limitation of appeals for rejected asylum seekers, and it is difficult to see, for the moment, how Gérald Darmanin can hope to obtain a majority.

Dissension even between the parties that support the government

The whole question is how long this situation can last. For the time being, neither LR nor Nupes have any real interest in a dissolution. But the problem is that there is frying within the majority itself. Renaissance derailed a text by the Horizons group on minimum sentences and Edouard Philippe’s troops rejected Aurore Bergé’s proposal on the ineligibility of people convicted of domestic violence.

Impossible to govern any legislature with blows of 49-3, the use being limited to a single text, except the budgetary texts. This is why, even if the pension reform were adopted, this first year of the second five-year term already has a false air of end of term.