A charlatan the executive would have done well. Horizons, still an ally of the presidential majority, voted this Saturday night in favor of an amendment that would allow 120 million euros to be allocated to the departments to face the revaluation of the RSA that they pay to the beneficiaries, against the opinion of the majority. What to see for some of Édouard Philippe’s wishes for independence, who would rely on his deputies to send a message to Emmanuel Macron.
“There is no desire to prepare a vote against the government. All this was done with great spontaneity and with the desire to reassure the local authorities,” Horizons deputy Frédéric Valletoux told BFMTV.com.
Attract local elected officials
In support of his statements, only 13 Horizons deputies out of 30 voted in favor of this amendment.
By way of justification, several elected members of the group exposed the political context. Although relations between local elected officials and the government have calmed down in recent months, after a period of five years of great tension, some saw the revaluation of the RSA, paid for by the departments, as a bad road in the absence of compensation.
“Our boss is the mayor of Le Havre. His DNA is the territories and respect for decentralization. We could not not vote on this amendment, ”says another deputy from his group.
In competition with the LRs
The method used by the government also greatly displeased the Horizons deputies. Coming mostly from the seats of the LR, these elected officials hardly enjoyed discovering in the session discussions about an amendment between the right and the macronies that would have allowed 150 million euros to be allocated to the communities.
“We have nothing against the discussions but we cannot discover these negotiations like this at the end of the table and only on the basis of the documents that the right sends us. It is not serious”, judges Frédéric Valletoux who points out “a problem of method about how to work.
Constrained by a relative majority, the presidential coalition must ensure a good understanding with its partners, knowing that it is obliged to send gestures to the LR, considered as the necessary auxiliary force to approve as many texts as possible.
Heading to the Senate
The setting weighs heavily on relations between the group led by Olivier Marleix and Horizons. It is that beyond the perimeter of the National Assembly, the young movement competes with the right for the next senatorial elections in 2024. The former prime minister intends to take his troops there and must, to do so, send, seduce the local elected officials. officials who vote for senators.
“A mayor without a label who sees that we are doing a good job, that we are defending the interests of the communities, can hesitate between the LR and us… And that would be very good news”, rejoices a member of the office of ‘horizons .
In the new political pact, the government must now depend on the Senate to modify the texts questioned by the National Assembly. After the snub suffered by the Government in the Covid-19 bill, it was the Luxembourg Palace that reintroduced the possibility of requiring a test at the borders in the event of a dangerous variant. What pushes the former tenant of Matignon to want to impose himself there.
Date set for next presidential election
But Édouard Philippe obviously projects far beyond the upper house and thinks of 2027. In recent times, the former prime minister has not hesitated to send “postcards” to the French. Launch of a campaign to join his own party in early July, proposal of a grand coalition to Emmanuel Macron last June on the set of BFMTV…
The mayor of Le Havre makes his own score heard, without hesitation in distancing himself from the government’s policy. as in an interview challenges last fall, denouncing a “dance on the volcano” instead of “drastic measures” to reduce debt.
The mayor in ambush
After Saturday’s amendment, the executive had a good time denouncing this huge discrepancy in language.
“I am amazed to see parliamentarians who only have the word ‘restoration of public finances’ in their mouths on television and who incur such public spending,” replied the Minister of Economy in the chamber, also very interested, sternly. in the next presidential elections.
It’s hard not to see, in this remote arms pass, the ambitions of two former LR comrades who see well after Emmanuel Macron’s second five-year term.
Source: BFM TV
