Is it the air of the month of May and its bridges, which are good but cut off all momentum? Where is the French political scene in a funny period? “There’s a bit of that,” admits MoDem MP Erwan Balanant; “We are on a little hollow”, abounds the socialist Arthur Delaporte. But others are more radical – and more anonymous: “We’re pissed off… It’s gray! “, pings an ecologist; “We are bored seriously”, slice the adviser of a minister in sight.
“We are in a false flat, it’s true, comments a socialist adviser. But the closer we get to June 8, the more folkloric it will be. “June 8 will be the day when the various right/various left group Liot (Freedoms, independents, overseas and territories) will have control of the agenda of the Assembly and will present its proposal for repeal raising the retirement age to 64. “It’s a date that comes up quite a bit in conversations”, recognizes, worried, a senior ministerial adviser.
Vigil of arms
The environmental deputy Benjamin Lucas – who is “never bored” – sees him, in the current period, “a vigil of arms” in view of June 8. “The battle for pensions is not over, it does not exist, a political battle that is ending. What the National Assembly has done, and there it has not really done, the National Assembly can undo it. “For the left, it is strictly impossible to move on: “It would still be to endorse a passage in force on something really structuring of the five-year term, explains a socialist adviser. I believe that some French people, who have the fight for justice and work at heart, hope that the opposition will move to prevent the government from moving on. But the options are “institutionally limited”, recognizes Arthur Delaporte, describing a “locked” Assembly.
During this vigil, the executive and the majority organize themselves more or less quietly. How to avoid the snub of the adoption of a virtual repeal of the pension reform? Obstruction? Voting blocked? Play on the possible unconstitutionality of the text? The last option holds the rope, and the other two are still on the table. “We are stuck by that, annoys the MoDem Erwan Balanant. It’s taking us a long time when it shouldn’t, it won’t come to anything and everyone knows it. We have to get back to work. »
Sanitized debates
Some dispute the importance of the Liot niche. “It’s going to be a day like any other! “, believes the macronist Nadia Hai. She also denies this idea of a waiting period: “We don’t bother at all! “She is offended, her nose on the agenda of the National Assembly. And it is true that it is full as an egg: soon the project on the sharing of value at work, on green industry, on justice… and currently the very large piece of the military programming law. “Not a day of parliamentary session will be wasted”, warned Matignon during the presentation of the roadmap of the “100 days” announced by Emmanuel Macron in early April.
This is the other big date that suspends time a little: July 14, when the president announced that he wanted to take stock of this new phase of the five-year term. On the left, as much to tell you that we did not really check the date. “What is the 100-day outlet? A new interview with Emmanuel Macron to give himself some time? “, quips Benjamin Lucas. For him, the sluggishness is caused by the inability of the macronists “to negotiate, build compromises and convince. As a result, they sanitize the debates ”.
“The presidential whirlwind has passed, and now it’s a bit empty”
In the government, on the other hand, several recognize being slightly suspended on this deadline: “It is gaseous, some feel suspended, it feels. However, they are less and less expecting a “big bang” on the day of the fireworks, sometimes with regret. The Head of State had however returned all fire, all flame, on the national scene in April, with several interventions and numerous visits to the provinces on industry, education, health… “It was a good strategy , believes a ministerial adviser. He managed to ward off the negative noise of retreats, regained control. But little printed as he spoke of important things. I don’t think it happened to the French. »
The most striking example is his announcement, admittedly vague, of lower taxes for the middle classes, last week on TF1. This interview – yet another major media intervention in a few weeks – not only received little attention, but also the advertisements were deemed not to be credible. “The presidential whirlwind has passed, and now it’s a bit empty,” explains another adviser, who notes that the Elysée and Matignon’s rein on the interventions of ministers is still very tight. The president “has this flaw of thinking that if it’s not him who does it, it sucks”.
Double denial
Less pessimistic, a high-ranking adviser judges that the Prime Minister has managed to exist in recent days “on TE subjects” (understand: ecological transition), but recognizes “that we are in a period where I find it difficult to see which could structure the news apart from pensions. It is there, without being there. The pension crisis is no longer the main subject but, in a way, still a burden for the executive.
This in-between is the result of a double denial. That of the oppositions, which cannot bring themselves to admit defeat. And that of the government, vis-à-vis the exorbitant political cost of its victory. Each camp has serious arguments: there were still hundreds of thousands of people in the street on May 1 against the reform. And the government can pride itself on having been at the end, if not of the “democratic journey”, according to its expression, at least of a legal institutional journey. So, is it the political crisis? No, maybe more political molasses.