Prime Minister Michel Barnier was keen to reassure Marine Le Pen on Tuesday about the RN’s membership in the “republican arc”, following comments by Economy Minister Antoine Armand.
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This is the first psychodrama between the Barnier government and the National Rally, and probably not the last. On Tuesday, September 24, Prime Minister Michel Barnier had to pick up the phone to call Marine Le Pen and bring his Minister of the Economy back into line. A few hours earlier, Antoine Armand had seemed to close the door to any discussion with the far-right party, during an interview on France Inter. Bercy then corrected the situation by indicating that the minister would soon be meeting with all the political forces.
These precautions taken by the Prime Minister speak volumes about the government’s nervousness with regard to the RN, especially given the speed with which the government reacted and made it known. Michel Barnier cannot afford to alienate the National Rally, simply because he is under the permanent threat of a motion of censure. This is the equation for the coming weeks, or even the coming months if all goes well for the government.
Officially, for the RN, Tuesday’s incident is closed. “We don’t play with a motion of censure”said the Somme MP Jean-Philippe Tanguy on Wednesday morning. This is now Marine Le Pen’s line: the National Rally will not add instability to instability by bringing down the government at the first opportunity.
But the party will not give in to this. On both the substance and the form, MP Kevin Mauvieux considers that a first red line has been crossed. : “He must not stumble like this for too long because it could become dangerous for the government. Now, how long will it last? That will depend on them. As we have said from the beginning, we have red lines, measures that seem essential to us – purchasing power, insecurity, the fight against immigration…”
“We are waiting to see the general policy speech, we will know more afterwards. We have always said that the Barnier government was under surveillance by the National Rally, the voters and the French people,” specifies the deputy of Eure.
“For now, we are only dealing with unfortunate words. But if there are unfortunate acts behind them, we will not deprive ourselves of censorship.”
Kevin Mauvieux, RN MP for Eureto franceinfo
“This incident is a drop in the bucket that will overflow at some point,” Another MP says that the censure will eventually fall. The question is when? “Probably not as soon as the budget is examined.confided a party official. But we will make regular progress reports to know whether or not we pull the trigger.”
But mathematically, the RN alone cannot bring down the government. Even counting its allies, notably the Ciottistes, the party has 142 deputies in the chamber, half as many as the absolute majority which stands at 289 deputies. For the government to fall, the National Rally would have to add its votes to those of the left and the New Popular Front.
In this configuration, two scenarios are possible. Either the National Rally files a motion of censure and the left-wing deputies vote for it, a rather unlikely scenario due to the cordon sanitaire with the extreme right, which is still resisting in the Assembly. Or – and this is what is likely to happen – the National Rally decides to vote for a motion of censure filed by another group and supported by the left. At that point, the government will have cause for concern.