In the arsenal available to the Assembly, it is perhaps the supreme weapon. Faced with the Prime Minister who refuses to submit to a vote of confidence by the deputies, La France insoumise will table a motion of censure against the new government, announced LFI MP Mathilde Panot on Monday July 4. This procedure will be launched on Wednesday, before Elisabeth Borne’s general policy speech, and may be put to the vote on Friday. What is a motion of censure? How does this procedure work? Can it really succeed? Franceinfo explains how it works.
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How does a motion of censure take place?
“The motion of censure takes the form of a text which explains that, for a certain number of reasons (which can be presented in more or less detail), the National Assembly censures the government and calls for its resignation”, explains to franceinfo the constitutionalist Didier Maus. Its operation is defined in Article 49 of the Constitution. In the case of the motion tabled by LFI, we speak of a “spontaneous motion”, as opposed to cases where the government itself puts its authority at stake (through the famous “49.3”).
First stage of a spontaneous motion: the text must be signed by one tenth of the deputies before being presented to the Assembly. Then comes a 48-hour reflection period, during which the text cannot be put to the vote. “It was designed to prevent MPs from adopting a motion and then regretting it”, explains Michel Verpeaux, professor emeritus at the Sorbonne law school. And “to allow the government to mobilize its allies and convince any undecided”adds Didier Maus.
How many votes are needed to pass it?
The fateful moment arrives, that of the vote. The motion of censure must be approved by the absolute majority of the deputies who make up the National Assembly, ie 289 elected members. A high bar, especially since abstentions are counted as refusals of the motion, therefore support for the government. If it is adopted by an absolute majority, it is article 50 of the Constitution which engages, and the Prime Minister is obliged to present the resignation of the government.
Has this already worked?
The deputies have already tabled 58 motions of censure against a government since the beginning of the Fifth Republic. On the other hand, it very rarely achieves its goal. Since 1958, only one motion of censure has been adopted: the government of Georges Pompidou was forced to resign in 1962. A majority of deputies were opposed to the referendum on the election of the president by universal suffrage that Charles de Gaulle wanted to establish. “The deputies had no way of reaching the president directly, so they attacked his government”says Michel Verpeaux.
Other governments have narrowly escaped censorship during periods of cohabitation, such as Jacques Chirac in 1986, Lionel Jospin in 1997, or Pierre Bérégovoy who only had a relative majority in 1992. It therefore hardly achieves its goal, but it’s normal: it was designed for that.
“Under the Fourth Republic, governments were easily overthrown because there was no need for an absolute majority of deputies.”
Michel Verpeaux, professor emeritus at the Sorbonne law schoolat franceinfo
“Some even resigned before the vote because they felt they no longer had the support of the hemicycle”, adds Michel Verpeaux. By drafting the Constitution of the Fifth Republic, the authors chose to limit this governmental instability.
Today, the motion of censure is above all “an effective way to challenge the government and show its disagreement”, he summarizes. A vision that Christian Jacob shared during the two motions of censure against Edouard Philippe after the Benalla affair: “The government is not going to fall but the motion of censure is the only way to have an explanation from the Prime Minister. He will not be able to escape and the French will judge”affirmed to France Inter the one who was then president of the LR group in the National Assembly.
Can this motion overthrow the Borne government?
The motion of censure carried by La France insoumise may struggle to come to an end. “There will be enough LFI deputies to obtain the 58 signatures and table it, but there is no risk that the government will be overthrown”slice Didier Maus.
Even if all the parliamentary groups that make up the Nupes (LFI, socialists and allies, ecologists and the democratic and republican left) voted unanimously to overthrow the government, they could only mobilize 151 deputies. To reach 289, it would be necessary to get a large number of votes from other opposition groups, in particular LR and RN.
But the two have already declared their disagreement. “We will not join our voices to those of LFI”announced Annie Genevard, the interim president of LR, on BFMTV Tuesday morning. The 89 RN deputies will not vote for the motion of censure either, assured Sébastien Chenu, Monday July 4. “We are not here to block everything, break everything”declared the vice-president of the National Assembly at the microphone of RTL.
Members of the Nupes themselves expressed their hesitation. Socialist Valérie Rabault said Tuesday on franceinfo not to be there “not favorable”. “A motion of censure is only of interest if it is voted and if it is not, that means that we are in favor, in a way, of the government which would emerge from this sequence”, fears the MP for Tarn-et-Garonne. However, she assures us that she “will follow the position of his group”. The four Nupes groups have also decided to vote for this motion of censure, franceinfo learned on Tuesday from the political parties concerned.
Didier Maus considers that“It is above all a symbolic act, a way for LFI to define itself as the ‘best opposition’ to Emmanuel Macron’s policy, and to identify within the ranks of Nupes those who are ready to go as far as ‘at the end”. The result of the vote will be known on Wednesday.