The leftist attempt to bring down the new French government failed Tuesday, as just 197 members of the National Assembly voted for the no-confidence measure, far below the 289 needed to collapse the government.
In what amounted to nothing more than an exercise in political catharsis, the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP), comprised of the Communists, Socialists, Greens and Jean-Luc Mélenenchon’s radical La France Insoumise (LFI) party, followed through with its vow to launch a vote of no confidence against the newly installed government of French Prime Minister Michel Barnier.
The vote was essentially dead on arrival, however, with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally — the largest single party in the National Assembly — refusing to join the far-left in its bid to censure the centrist government so early in its tenure.
RN lawmaker Guillaume Bigot said per Le Figaro: “The censure motion is a serious act. We don’t censure to censure. We don’t oppose to oppose. We will only censure this government if its actions harm the interests of the French.”
Unsurprisingly, such prudence was in short supply on the left, with the NFP still simmering with indignation over Macron’s refusal to allow them to form a minority government after the leftist bloc came out on top in the snap legislative elections in July.
The New Popular Front claimed that the installation of former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as PM, rather than their preferred candidate, unelected deep state alumna and socialist economist Lucie Castets, was an affront to French democracy.
However, while the NFP did win the most seats in the election after the leftist bloc made a strategic voting pact with Macron and his allies, millions more voters cast their ballots for the populist National Rally than for the New Popular Front.
Nevertheless, fuelled by faux outrage, the leftist coalition vowed to “do everything” to take down the Barnier government even before one policy was enacted.
In a screed delivered before the National Assembly, the head of the Socialists in the NFP, Olivier Faure declared: “Never, Prime Minister, should you have stood before me with a government that should never have been appointed. As if July 7th (the date of the legislative elections) had never existed.”
Other NFP leftists accused the government, which is mostly staffed by Macron loyalists, of being beholden to the so-called “far-right”, with its power only persisting because of the decision by the National Rally — so far — to not join the censure motion.
Yet demonstrating the fecklessness of the attempt to overthrow the government, which received just 197 votes nearly all on party line, the Palais Bourbon was sparsely populated, with former Prime Ministers Élisabeth Borne and Gabriel Attal declining to attend the censure motion.
In a speech before the National Assembly following the failed no-confidence vote, Prime Minister Barnier said: “I don’t need to be reminded that the government is a minority, I know. There is no absolute majority for anyone.”
Although Barnier survived his first no-confidence vote, it is not likely to be his last, with a looming budget showdown over France’s ballooning debt crisis likely to expose the divisions within the three-way split parliament in Paris.
While the National Rally did not support the efforts to topple the government on Tuesday, Marine Le Pen has predicted that there will need to be new legislative elections by next year after the year-long prohibition on President Macron calling for an election expires next July.
The prediction suggests that the support from the National Rally for the government will not come cheap and that concessions, most likely on immigration, will need to be made by Macron if he wants to hold together his government.
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