Parliamentarians have no friends, they only have interests. In the aftermath of the forced passage of the pension reform, the little bell of a reshuffle, even a dissolution of the National Assembly is back. Fresh offshore winds are waiting. And the fishing nets are ready to be unsheathed. Some compatible LR Macron elected officials would take advantage of the social and political storm that the country is going through to join the majority. “My identity is overcoming,” proclaimed Élisabeth Borne at the Horizons congress, Saturday, March 25. Will the shore waves overcome the right?
In the event of legislative elections next Sunday, the majority, holding 250 seats in the Assembly, could lose more than 50, according to an Ifop-Fiducial poll. The finding is bitter for the executive, which already plans to split the immigration bill. Ten months after the presidential election, the government is bogged down. Hope could come, once again, from the right, more divided than ever. A government pact seems unlikely, but Republican figures could be poached. “Many isolated LR elected officials are waiting to be reached out to them. They don’t want the Ciotti-Wauquiez line, nor Marine Le Pen at the Élysée, “recently confided to Point an attentive observer of the right. Which ? Overview.
The former minister is one of those who could have been part of the current government. Supporter of a rapprochement under conditions of the two parties, he had offered his services to Emmanuel Macron in August 2022. But the mayor of Meaux had been politely dismissed. Relatives of the President of the Republic had regretted it. “When we see that Macron was not able to recall Copé who held out his hand to him… It is him, the war prize that should be brought into the government on an important post”, was annoyed recently, in our columns, a regular interlocutor of the Head of State. A possible reshuffle would perhaps offer a second chance to Jean-François Copé, who grumbles at the “lamentable” choice of some of the elected LRs to vote for censorship, believing that LR has reached “an absolutely total level of impasse” .
In an interview with Point on Saturday March 25, the mayor of La Baule, Franck Louvrier, calls for “reform” within the framework of an enlarged presidential majority, the only way out of the crisis in his eyes. The former communications adviser at Nicolas Sarkozy’s Élysée Palace from 2007 to 2012 follows in the footsteps of his former boss. Franck Louvrier calls for the union of the center and the right with the macronie rather than seeing the Republican party collapse and make a pact with the National Rally. If, in this same interview, he eludes his personal case – “It’s not the issue of the moment” -, this fine connoisseur of the mysteries of power – and of the right -, who refused the offer which was made to deal with the communication of the current president, would make a good recruit for an enlarged majority.
He is the last mayor of a big city to have slammed the door of the Republicans, on March 12. The mayor of Orléans, who has been on the right for forty years, believes that “The Republicans no longer have any political line” and calls for “building a new majority”. “I persist: there is an urgent need to build a new majority to avoid the worst. Later it will be too late,” he insisted in a statement. At the start of the internal elections at LR, Serge Grouard was already proposing to his colleagues “a clear and clear government pact with the President of the Republic on the basis of four emergencies for France: environment and energy, security and immigration, health and hospital , debts and state reform”. Which is not quite, as we have seen, in Ciotti’s plans…
An agreement, yes, but under conditions. The president of the Pays de la Loire region, who left LR the day after the first round of the presidential election, sticks to this line. Like Serge Grouard, she set some guidelines in September 2022. “We must build a government contract with Emmanuel Macron, which must be negotiated from A to Z, and which must focus on essential priorities: putting schools back at the heart of our Republic, restoring our economy and our public accounts, pension reform, guaranteeing security everywhere and for everyone, reindustrializing France, protecting the most fragile among us, inventing the ecology of growth”, she explained in an interview with Ouest-France. At least one of his priorities has been retained: the pension reform has passed.
The one who dreams of taking the place of Anne Hidalgo at the Paris City Hall would be the ideal pickaxe, especially in view of the municipal elections of 2026. 45% of respondents to the Ifop-Fiducial survey carried out in mid-March 2023 believe that the former minister would make a good mayor of Paris, ahead of Gabriel Attal (40%) or Clément Beaune (26%). On March 18, she pleaded in a forum at the JDD for a “government agreement” in order to “restore the country and restore order”.
Alexandre Vincendet did not vote for the motion of censure on pensions. The member of the Rhône, discreet but effective, extends his hand to the government. If it seems to be in the minority within the LR group, it is not to displease Nicolas Sarkozy. On Friday March 24, Alexandre Vincendet called, in an interview with Le Figaro, his political family to “negotiate with the executive” and he called on the former head of state or even Jean-François Copé and Rachida Dati to “propose a government contract”.
Another mayor, another region. Daniel Fasquelle, local elected official from Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, had supported Emmanuel Macron on social networks the day after the first round of the presidential election. “A demanding and attentive support prior to a rally around an ambitious project”, wrote the treasurer of the Republicans. The small city of Pas-de-Calais regularly welcomes the Macron spouses since the president and the first lady own a villa there and vote there. More discreet since the legislative elections, the elected official even considered running for the presidency of the Republicans in December 2022. Fall to get up better, this is the slogan adopted.
Philippe Juvin, deputy for Hauts-de-Seine and unfortunate contender for the Republican primary in 2021, assured last July that he had been approached by the executive. The entourage of the head of state guaranteed for his part to have refused his proposals. As a reminder, the most famous doctor-politician during the Covid-19 crisis pleaded for a “German-style agreement” in May 2022. Philippe Juvin also did not deposit a ballot in the ballot box on Monday March 20 on the motion of censure. The second attempt could be the right one.
