The countdown has begun for Emmanuel Macron. He is playing this Monday not only the future of his government, but the very physiognomy of his second term. Whether the motion of no confidence succeeds or fails, Macron will lose his credibility and his governance will be weakened.
Indeed, Emmanuel Macron is experiencing one of the most crucial political sequences of his two terms. He is currently under maximum double pressure, union and political. And even if he manages to save his government from censorship, the rest of his term will not look like a long calm river.
It must be said that Macron has created his own sequence of tension. He had the choice between submitting the pension reform project to the vote of parliament, allowing the national representation to debate and vote and that castrating democratic debate, the use of the famous 49.3. An article certainly of the constitution but not to brandish, according to the detractors of Macron, in such effervescent political contexts.
And the current French context is one of the most explosive. Many weeks of protest in the street under the umbrella of an unprecedented union unanimity, a mobilization of a very determined parliamentary opposition, including up to the ranks of the Republican party. These two factors have created an atmosphere where using the 49.3 is like throwing a can of gasoline onto glowing embers.
And that’s exactly what Emmanuel Macron has just done. And the question that torments the Parisian circles is the following: does Macron know the importance and the consequences of such a decision, did he do it knowingly while preparing for a trade union and political showdown of unprecedented institutional violence? Or was he betting on general disenchantment and fatalism on the part of the French who would end up overcoming all resistance?
In any case, he is now back to the wall. Unions wound up like pendulums and which risk being overwhelmed on their left by more radical protest groups, a political opposition, from left and right, denouncing the democratic deprivation to which Emmanuel Macron delivered himself to against them.
If the motion of censure is not guaranteed to have an absolute majority, given that for that, the left, the extreme right and a large part of the Republicans must vote as one man, Emmanuel Macron is not not safe from a political accident.
What militates for the probable success of this motion is that its vote will have the direct consequence of invalidating this pension reform adopted by 49.3.
But what militates for its failure is at two levels. The first is that Republican membership is not guaranteed and massive enough to tip the scales in favor of censorship.
The second is that Emmanuel Macron had openly threatened that in the event of success of this censorship which would bring down the government of Élisabeth Borne, he would immediately proceed to the dissolution of the Assembly and call early legislative elections.
This sword of Damocles brandished over the heads of parliamentarians would make many of them hesitate who would not wish to return to the polls, especially those who are not sure of regaining their parliamentary seat.
In any case, Emmanuel Macron will not emerge victorious from this showdown with the French. It may be that he tells himself that we do not engage in structural reforms without breaking eggs, without tears or anger, it turns out that as public opinion has gone, Macron’s governance can suffer from a lack of French support in the remaining years of his second term.
With these obstacles, the question of impeded governance of Emmanuel Macron is posed today with great acuity. His reformist agenda could be called into question, even devitalized. And if he is weakened internally, his international performance could suffer.
His complications can be aggregated with enormous seriousness, especially since due to the French constitution, he cannot claim a third term. Immediate and already perceptible consequences: Political groups that are traditionally part of the presidential majority may be tempted to regain their freedom of tone and their room for maneuver.
The political chronicles of the French press are full of echoes where men allied with Emmanuel Macron like François Bayrou, boss of the Modem and Édouard Phillipe boss of the small group Horizons, let their sourness point against the choices of Emmanuel Macron. They are positioning themselves as possible alternatives to Macron. This trend could be accentuated in a political context of tensions and isolation of the Macron governance.