Are some parliamentary groups closer than they would like to admit? Emmanuel Macron accused, Wednesday, October 26, the left of advancing “together” with the extreme right, after the surprise vote of the National Rally in favor of the motion of censure of the Nupes, in reaction to the use of 49.3 on the 2023 budget.
The Head of State, guest of “L’Evénement” on France 2 on Wednesday evening, conversely declared that he wanted “an alliance” with the deputies Les Républicains and the centrists of the Liot group (Liberties, independents, overseas and territories) to allow the adoption of texts by its majority in the Assembly.
Beyond the vote of this motion of censure, alliances of circumstances appear in the hemicycle since the beginning of the legislature, at the end of June? To answer this question, franceinfo immersed itself in the 390 ballots voted by the deputies between July 11 and October 27, and made public by the National Assembly. Whether bills, amendments, articles or motions of censure.
A close-knit presidential majority
A first observation is obvious: the groups that make up the presidential majority almost always vote together. A clear political line is emerging. The votes of the MoDem, the party of centrist ally François Bayrou, are 98% identical to those of Renaissance, the presidential party. As for the deputies of Horizons, the party founded by the former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, they vote at nearly 97% like those of the formation chaired by the macronist Aurore Bergé.
A little less cohesion within the Nupes
Within the New Popular, Ecological and Social Union (Nupes), the “rebellious”, the Communists, the Ecologists and the Socialists vote together for the majority of the ballots, but in a less homogeneous way than the presidential majority. While between Renaissance, the MoDem and Horizons, the votes are almost identical at 100%, this rate does not exceed 79% on average between the deputies of La France insoumise, those of the Communist Party and those of Europe Ecologie-Les Verts .
It even drops to 75% for the Socialists, who seem to adopt a less radical opposition strategy than the other members of the alliance of left-wing parties. The PS group in the Assembly, for example, abstained during the vote on the bill on purchasing power, while its three other allies voted against.
A common point, however, brings together the members of the intergroup: they very rarely vote in favor of the presidential majority, and even less in favor of the Renaissance group alone. LFI opposed Renaissance in 80% of the votes. Same observation with the Modem. The only bill where LFI and Renaissance voted identically concerned the fight against fraud in the personal training account (CPF).
Even if the socialists and the ecologists vote once out of four in the same way as Horizons or Renaissance, the Nupes therefore remains a major opponent of the majority.
The RN votes more often like the Nupes than like the majority
The National Rally, which is the second party with the most seats in the Palais-Bourbon (89), does not make a clear break with the other groups in the Assembly. Marine Le Pen’s group votes the same way as those of the presidential majority in less than 23% of cases. Conversely, it displays a stronger affinity with the Les Républicains group (around 40% of similar votes). He also often goes in the same direction as the members of the Nupes.
In addition to a motion of censure, the RN and LFI, for example, both voted against the finance programming law and against that relating to the functioning of the labor market with a view to full employment. But they held divergent positions for the vote on the law on the protection of purchasing power and for that on the amending finances for 2022.
The deputies of the RN seem to observe to the letter the strategy of seeking respectability advocated by Marine Le Pen, who declares that she wants to pass the laws above all in the interest of the voters, while assuming a posture of opposition to the power of Emmanuel Macron. .
Another element characterizes the votes of the RN group in the Assembly: a particularly high abstention rate. It is around 17% on average, compared to less than 7% for LFI. As for the Renaissance group, it has not abstained once since the beginning of the legislature.
The Republicans, a major ally for the majority
Although the votes of the Republicans are not as homogeneous as those of the presidential majority, they are very similar. One out of two votes is similar to that of Renaissance, Horizons or the MoDem. The group chaired by Olivier Marleix also votes quite often like that of the RN (39% of the votes are identical between the two groups).
For their part, the non-registered deputies who are not attached to any parliamentary group seem close to the RN group, with more than 57% of identical votes. This political group made up of only four deputies is notably composed of the sovereignist Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, founder of Debout la France.
The relative majority enjoyed by the President of the Republic in the Assembly, but also the break-up of the opposition into three main blocs (left, right and extreme right), have indeed made it difficult to adopt laws since the start of the second mandate of Emmanuel Macron. Among the 390 ballots analysed, the percentage of texts adopted by the deputies has risen to less than 30% since 11 July. It was more than 35% in the same period during the previous legislature.