“We must invent a new form of cohabitation”

What makes this political moment so unique?

We have been faced, since the 2022 legislative elections, with a situation in which not only does the President of the Republic not have an absolute majority in the National Assembly, but where no opposition alone represents a majority alternation force. . We must therefore invent a new form of cohabitation. No doubt Emmanuel Macron should have thought about it from 2022.

In what way?

By giving the Prime Minister greater responsibility with a triple mission: to propose a government, to decide on a political, economic and social project, and to achieve a majority. It would have been an intermediate configuration between that where the President directs everything, and that where he sticks to foreign policy and Defense. Emmanuel Macron did not do it. He was wrong. Furthermore, he is not eligible for re-election. The central block has therefore become a headless duck.

How did you understand his decision to dissolve the National Assembly?

The dissolution, if it had any meaning, could have no other aim than to “vaccinate” us against a Le Pen presidency, by letting the National Rally gain access to the government to reveal its inability to manage the country. This risky calculation contradicted the option chosen a few days later to block the National Rally (RN) by forming the Republican front. New about-face the day after the election: the rejection, in my view welcome, of any agreement with La France insoumise. Three successive contradictory options. We understand that public opinion was disconcerted.

A certain number of voters who voted “republican front” feel cheated by this new government under pressure from the RN, and without any left-wing minister.

The last legislative elections having resulted in the almost equal appearance of three incompatible blocs, power can only necessarily belong to one in three French people. An obviously frustrating situation for the other two, especially in such a non-consensual society.

This fragmentation of opinion is also observed in other European countries…

Yes, but the French have a specificity: they are in denial of reality. Never has the gap been so wide between the country’s needs and expectations. Our compatriots want to improve their purchasing power and retire earlier, but the economic situation does not allow this. The need for investment, growth and increased productivity was completely ignored in the last electoral campaign.

Should Emmanuel Macron have appointed Lucie Castets as Prime Minister, since the NFP came first in the legislative elections?

Let’s be clear, the New Popular Front (NFP) did not win these elections. In terms of votes, the RN won, obtaining 33% of the votes if we count Eric Ciotti and his friends. The two other forces – the central bloc and the NFP – total 29% and the other 28%. As it was impossible to build a reasonable compromise between LFI, the socialists and part of the central bloc, Ms. Castets’ government had no chance of holding on. To name it was to take the risk of an immediate and very serious crisis on the financial markets. But we can regret that the socialists did not want to give Bernard Cazeneuve a chance, even if it meant breaking with the Insoumis.

Why don’t they do it, in your opinion?

The electoral interest of the socialists prevents them from cutting themselves off from LFI, a few months before the local elections. Furthermore, their mythology has always imprisoned them in an unmanageable loyalty to the idea of ​​the union of the left, even if they appreciate neither the options nor the methods of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. French socialism has never had a clear identity. He was always fascinated and horrified by his communist, and now Trotskyist, big brother. Current polls show it: socialist sympathizers are allergic to LFI and their leader while remaining supporters of the union! This almost schizophrenic attitude deprives the liberal, social and European bloc of its potential left wing. This is a big difference from what is happening in Germany, the United Kingdom or the Northern countries.

Can this government last?

The real danger, in the short term, is of a budgetary nature, but the RN will think twice before triggering censorship, because it is not easy to want to appear as a responsible party and at the same time open, by this vote, a financial crisis. The only option for Michel Barnier is to deal with the issues fundamentally while acting as if his time was not running out.

As soon as the government was formed, friction arose between ministers of different sensibilities.

These dissensions are first of all postures linked to personal competition, in the perspective of the next presidential election. Ideologically, the Republicans, purged of the elements who left with Éric Ciotti towards the RN, are not essentially in contradiction with the parties of the central bloc – Modem, Ensemble, Horizons – those that Raymond Barre could have described as “liberal, social, European”. Even the question of immigration can be managed without drama as long as we prefer substantive solutions to parades and chimeras.

If, however, Michel Barnier were to throw in the towel, what would be the alternative?

A dissolution would not solve anything. In the hypothesis that you mention, the head of state will be tempted to put the socialists against the wall and I would not be surprised if the Cazeneuve hypothesis is then revived.

You are a big supporter of proportional representation. Is it urgent to implement it to better reflect electoral diversity?

If things continue to drift, we can fear that whatever the voting method, the sum of extremist votes – RN, LFI and close allies – will be in the majority. It is the political offer which will be decisive, not the institutional change, even if the adoption of proportional representation would free the moderates of the right and the left from the electoral influence that the extremists exercise over them.

Does Emmanuel Macron’s failure signify that of your family, the center?

The fundamental postulate of Macronism, that of a France divided into three large groups, and not into two large forces of right and left, remains valid, and for a long time, because what separates the right from the extreme right and the left of the far left is fundamental: attachment to Europe, Western solidarity, defense of Ukraine, representative democracy, liberal economy combined with the welfare state… These are heavy choices and divisive. As the essayist Albert Thibaudet (1874-1936) said, “politics is ideas”. People from the center must, on the basis of these ideas, build a more attractive political offer. The outgoing majority mainly failed in not having measured the extent of the changes required by more economical and efficient public management.