Five days after the use of 49.3 to adopt the bill, nearly twenty right-wing deputies, out of the 61 elected members of the Les Républicains group, voted on Monday for the text aimed at overthrowing the government.
This is a first since the beginning of the establishment of this legislature decidedly unlike any other: Republican deputies voted for a motion of censure. No less than 19 right-wing deputies out of the 61 in the LR group at the Palais Bourbon voted, Monday, March 20, the motion of censure “transpartisan” filed by the Liot group and co-signed by deputies from Nupes, after the 49.3 drawn last Wednesday by Elisabeth Borne to force through the pension reform.
A number certainly insufficient to force the government to resign – the motion was rejected by 9 votes – but much more important than the information of recent days would have predicted. This vote testifies above all to the deep divisions which have crossed the group Les Républicains in the Assembly since the start of the examination of this bill. “Factually, the group will implode”, also assured, at the beginning of February, an LR deputy. “We are at a crossroads”also predicted a relative of Aurélien Pradié.
Aurélien Pradié shows his disagreement
The small group of the deputy of Lot, ex-number two of the party, and who led the revolt on the right on the pension reform, also voted the motion of censure. Aurélien Pradié had himself announced it Monday morning on Europe 1. “If it is necessary to go through this electroshock and this political alert, I assume it”he explained, assuring to act “as a patriot and not as a political opponent”. “The objective is to denounce the conditions for examining this bill” but also of“offer a way out of the crisis in the country”, had justified one of his relatives, the deputy of Pas-de-Calais Pierre-Henri Dumont, on BFMTV. Ian Boucard, also on the line of Aurélien Pradié, had also announced on Thursday evening on Twitter that he would vote for the cross-partisan censure motion. Deputy Maxime Minot went even further by voting not only the text of the Liot group, but also that of the National Rally (like two other LR deputies), for the sake of “consistency”. Unsurprisingly, the RN’s motion of no confidence was also largely defeated (with just 94 votes in favor).
>> Find out which deputies voted for the motions of censure against the government
But those close to Aurélien Pradié are not the only ones to have voted for Liot’s motion of censure. The deputy of the Ardennes, Pierre Cordier, had in turn announced, Sunday on CNewsthat he would vote for the censure of the government, like the deputy Francis Dubois, elected in Corrèze. “Having always affirmed my opposition to this unjust reform, I will vote for the motion of censure tabled by the deputies of the Liot group”had written the latter on Twitter. The undecided also increased the contingent of voters within the LR group. The deputy of Drôme, Emmanuelle Anthoine, who still assured Sunday that she hesitated, finally crossed the Rubicon. Same thing for the deputy of the Loire, Dino Cinieri, who was also uncertain.
What fate for these rebellious deputies?
These votes go in any case against the official line of the party. The boss of the Republicans, Eric Ciotti, had announced on Thursday that his political formation would not vote “none” motions of censure, so as not to “add chaos to chaos” after the government’s forced passage via 49.3.
“The crisis situation in the country would not support a fatal blow to our democracy and our institutions today: we will never participate in a coalition of extremes whose sole purpose is to carry the revolution.”
Eric Ciotti, deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes and president of the Les Républicains partyquoted by AFP
In Le Figarothe boss of the group Les Républicains à l’Assemblée, Olivier Marleix, had also called his colleagues to the “responsibility” considering that those who will vote for a motion “will serve the soup to Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen”. It remains to be seen what fate will be reserved for these “slingers”.