the fragile coalition, supporting the government of Michel Barnier, already torn on the question of taxes

The tax increases announced by Michel Barnier divide the fragile coalition which supports the government. It must be said that it is quite a spin that the Prime Minister justifies by the sharp deterioration of public accounts. The right is swallowing the snake as best it can, even if some deputies from Laurent Wauquiez’s group are reluctant, but in the Macronist ranks, things are seriously rocking. It’s a “unacceptable project” thundered Gérald Darmanin, Thursday October 3, on franceinfo.

The former Minister of the Interior will not vote for a tax increase, he says, worrying about the calling into question of reductions in charges for businesses, or an increase in tax on companies. Gabriel Attal also made the refusal of any tax increase a “red line” of his support for the government. It is in the name of the defense of activity, work, and the policy of supply, the talisman of the original economic macronism, that a good part of the deputies of the Ensemble group could therefore abstain or even for some vote against the budget.

The parliamentary discussion promises to be heated, but the hostility of the Macronists is also an admission of weakness for the presidential camp. Firstly because Emmanuel Macron himself admitted on Thursday the need for “exceptional taxation” of the “large companies” if she is “limited” in time. Not sure that these words are enough to bring the recalcitrant deputies into line. We risk measuring to what extent, under the leadership of Gabriel Attal, the Ensemble group is emancipating itself from presidential supervision. And above all, the central bloc finds itself in a strategic impasse. Editorial.

The Macronists support a Prime Minister who takes pleasure in lecturing them on the results, Michel Barnier does not hold back vis-à-vis Gabriel Attal, and participate in a government which takes decisions contrary to the policy that They were leading just three months ago. Between taxation on the one hand and Bruno Retailleau’s chin-thumping on security and immigration on the other, the whole ball of macronism threatens to unwind. The Ensemble group has already lost several deputies. Already difficult to implement when he reigned at Matignon, the “at the same time” macronist, and its new version, one foot in, one foot out, becomes impossible when you are only the passenger of a vehicle of which you have had to let go of the steering wheel.