France | Final sprint for the race for the presidency of the National Assembly

(Paris) After the government’s resignation, all eyes are turning to the rostrum on Wednesday: political groups are refining their strategy to obtain the presidency of the National Assembly on Thursday, a challenge also for the left, which is trying to urgently relaunch its negotiations for Matignon.

The outgoing Yaël Braun-Pivet, the centrist independent Charles de Courson, Annie Genevard for Les Républicains… The candidates for the perch are not yet legion, a little over 24 hours before an uncertain election scheduled for Thursday from 3 p.m.

The tripartite division of the hemicycle between the New Popular Front, the presidential camp and the National Rally, all far from an absolute majority, confuses the parliamentary landscape and encourages the formation of alliances.

This will also set the tone for the future chances of achieving a majority in this Assembly, and therefore for seeing a government emerge.

Having come out on top in the early legislative elections, the New Popular Front has agreed on the principle of a joint candidacy, but has not yet made its choice.

Five names were put on the table on Tuesday, those of the four group presidents Boris Vallaud (PS), Cyrielle Chatelain (Ecologist), André Chassaigne (PCF), and Mathilde Panot (LFI) as well as that of Eric Coquerel (LFI), former president of the Finance Committee.

Tondelier’s Wrath

But these negotiations on the left are coming up against the failure of negotiations on the joint candidate for the post of Prime Minister. For 10 days, the Insoumis and the Socialists have been increasingly opposed to each other head-on, provoking the ire of their partners.

The leader of the environmentalists, Marine Tondelier, said she was “angry” and “disgusted” by this leadership war. “I am tired and I am sorry for the spectacle we are giving […] “If some people don’t want to (govern), they’re going to have to take responsibility for it. Because if we don’t succeed, then we’re in for ten years,” she lamented on France 2, urging her partners to get back to the negotiating table, because “every hour counts.”

To break the deadlock, some, such as François Ruffin or the communist group, would like to resolve the issue by a vote of the NFP deputies.

It is almost time for the last chance for the left, which fears being overtaken by the “central bloc” in the Assembly: many Macronist executives are looking towards the right to build a “majority coalition” or a “legislative pact”, a request that comes from Emmanuel Macron.

Le Pen laments the “quagmire”

Gabriel Attal, who resigned on Tuesday but remains in charge of current affairs, has also promised to propose “meetings” with other political groups in the near future to “move towards (an) action pact” with a view to forming a new government.

The possible re-election of Yaël Braun-Pivet to the presidency with the assent of the right – there are some movements in this direction – could thus prove to the Macronists that an alternative majority to the left is possible.

Laurent Wauquiez, the leader of the new Republican Right group, nevertheless still categorically refuses the idea of ​​a coalition with the outgoing majority, preferring to work on a “legislative pact” around several flagship measures of the right.

Beaten at the polls but clearly progressing with 143 deputies alongside its allies, the National Rally intends to take advantage of this institutional blockage which is a blot on the landscape nine days before the opening of the Olympic Games.

“I said either the National Rally will have an absolute majority, or it will be a quagmire. It’s a quagmire, all of this was predictable,” Marine Le Pen said on BFMTV/RMC. The three-time presidential candidate is outraged by a “political class that is turning in on itself” and also promises to nominate an RN candidate for the perch in the coming hours.

She also demanded that the RN and its allies be represented at the level of their elected representatives in the governing bodies of the Assembly while the left wants to oppose it. “A major hypocrisy”, according to M^me The pen.

Strategic positions in the Assembly, such as quaestors and vice-presidents, will be designated on Friday, before elections on Saturday for the heads of committees, closing a new week of intense political negotiations.

“I would not like the left’s big bargaining to be followed by the National Assembly’s big bargaining,” warned Lot MP Aurélien Pradié, a former LR who could sit among the non-registered. “We have a country to rebuild and that is more important than the distribution of positions in the Assembly,” he insisted on Franceinfo.