The new French government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier (right) faces its first motion of censure in Parliament on Tuesday, presented by the left, which it should survive despite its lack of majority, the far right refusing to support this text.
A month after his surprise appointment in early September by President Emmanuel Macron, Mr. Barnier, 73 years old and veteran of the French right, will face the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, from 3 p.m. (11 a.m. in Quebec). , a motion of censure defended by a coalition of left-wing parties bringing together socialists, ecologists and the radical left.
This coalition, the New Popular Front (NFP), came first in the early legislative elections called by Mr. Macron last summer, without however obtaining an absolute majority.
She has since criticized the head of state for not having really given her a chance to form a government, Mr. Macron having preferred to create a coalition much more marked on the right.
The Barnier government, “in its composition and its orientations, is a negation of the result of the last legislative elections”, affirm the 192 NFP deputies carrying the motion of censure.
But the parliamentary left seems far from being able to gather the 289 votes required – the absolute majority – in the National Assembly to overthrow the government. An extremely rare event in France, occurring for the last time in 1962.
Especially since the National Rally (RN, far right), the party best represented alone in the Assembly with 126 elected officials, has already made it known that it would not support this initiative.
“I think the situation is serious enough not to already censor this government in advance. We are going, I was going to say, to give the product a chance,” quipped last week RN MP Laure Lavalette, whose party is thus showcasing its new position as arbiter of the Assembly, and to a certain extent that of maker. or government undoer.
Taxes and immigration
Some elected officials from the presidential camp could also speak out in favor of censorship, but without swinging the vote. For some, it is a question of sanctioning a government that is too far to the right on questions of security and immigration.
Others are hostile to Mr. Barnier’s intention to temporarily increase taxes for the most profitable companies and the richest French people, while compulsory taxes in France are already among the highest among member countries of the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development).
This “exceptional” effort will represent a third of the debt reduction desired by the new government, the remaining “two-thirds” having to come from a reduction in public spending – which, this time, arouses the ire of the left.
The new government intends to gradually reduce the public deficit, which risks exceeding 6% of GDP this year, well above the 3% ceiling that the countries of the European Union have set collectively.
“The real sword of Damocles is our colossal financial debt […] which, if we are not careful, will place our country on the edge of the precipice,” Mr. Barnier justified last Tuesday before the Assembly.
He then also announced a toughening of migration and integration policies, believing that they were no longer controlled in a “satisfactory manner”, an assertion at the heart of the program of the French far right and acclaimed by its growing electorate.
On Monday, the new French Minister of Finance, Antoine Armand, tried to convince his EU counterparts of Paris’ budgetary seriousness during a meeting in Luxembourg.
The stated objective is to reduce the deficit from 6.1% this year to 5% next year, before falling below 3% by 2029, two years later than what was promised by the previous government. .
France’s 10-year borrowing rate exceeded that of Spain on the debt market at the end of September, a first in almost 18 years.