the deputies are mixed on the experimentation of questions to the government 100% reserved for Gabriel Attal

The format of questions from MPs reserved for the Prime Minister ends on Wednesday. This new formula for questions to the government does not convince everyone.

“If there are anyone who thinks it’s great, let them come forward or keep silent forever” : this is the challenge launched by a Modem executive on the eve of the 5th and last session of Gabriel Attal alone on the track facing the rolling fire of questions from deputies. It will take place on Wednesday June 5. François Bayrou’s party voted against this experiment and the centrist deputies did not really change their minds about it. Horizons also opposed it and friends of Édouard Philippe still believe that “it desecrates the words of the Prime Minister”.

The left was also against it and did not change its mind. An elected environmentalist goes so far as to speak of “flop” and find “that a series of questions does not benefit the Prime Minister, who is obliged to give very general answers”. This is what socialists and rebels also point out: responses from Gabriel Attal sometimes fail “next to the questions”or are even “less interesting than when ministers respond”. This is somewhat the limit of this exercise: when the Prime Minister goes to the front on absolutely all subjects, it is above all to play politics, retaliate and attack the adversaries. He is therefore less able to respond in detail on this or that file. Someone close to Gabriel Attal agrees: “It really depends on the news.”

Opinions are also mixed among those who supported the establishment of this new format. The RN had campaigned for these ping-pong sessions with the Prime Minister, to the point of claiming authorship of the idea. But someone close to Marine Le Pen considers today that “Gabriel Attal is wearing out at high speed”. LR was also for it and maintains it: “Attal recites elements of language, but it’s always better when it’s done by the head of government than by a deputy minister!” However, at Renaissance, we see that this meeting did not resolve the basic problem, which had pushed the President of the Assembly to test a new format: “It didn’t bring many more people, the chamber is still not full on Wednesday.”

Now that the experimental phase is coming to an end, the conference of presidents must study, on the morning of Tuesday June 4, the format chosen for next week’s question sessions with the government, which will take place in the wake of the European elections. Then we will stay in a bit of a “gray zone” for two weeks, before imagining what happens next. Yaël Braun-Pivet’s meeting with all the group leaders, to officially take stock of the five 100% Prime Minister sessions, will not be held until June 19.