Dialogue and compromise, Borne moves on to practical work

July 9, 2022

After the speeches, the practical work. Renowned at the head of a reshuffled government, Elisabeth Borne has proclaimed her faith in compromise, a new method that she will experiment with on the purchasing power text, hoping for the help of the Senate.

“Our approach can be summed up in three words: dialogue, compromise, openness”, summed up government spokesman Olivier Véran on Thursday after the Council of Ministers which validated the first major bill of the new Borne government on the purchasing power.

Because even if she does not have an absolute majority in the Assembly, and has not been able to form a coalition government, the Prime Minister has not given up on “acting”.

To achieve this, she urged her opponents on Wednesday, in her general policy statement, to “build together” “project majorities”, saying she was ready to “hear the proposals” or even “amend” her project, and she announced a “consultation” in September on the future energy-climate law.

Former Prime Minister Michel Rocard, quoted by Ms. Borne, who also did not have a majority in 1988, had relied on his iconoclastic parliamentary adviser Guy Carcassonne to obtain “stereo majorities”, once with the moderate right , another time with the Communists, recalls the parliamentary historian Jean Garrigues.

But Mr. Rocard had also made extensive use of article 49-3 to pass texts, which are more difficult to use now. Without this provision, the discussion will have to be “text by text”, even approaching each parliamentarian instead of the group, notes a member of the government.

Behind the scenes of the deliberations of the parliamentary committees, “there is always this idea of ??negotiation. But there it will be systemic”, underlines Mr. Garrigues.

In this process, the government is counting on the help of the Senate, dominated by the right LR, whose Elisabeth Borne praised on Wednesday “the experience” in terms of dialogue and compromise. In this regard, she proposed that more texts be examined first by the upper house, which would become a “co-construction force”.

A minister even suggests that at the very beginning of the examination of a text, the deputies of the majority “integrate” into the discussions their counterparts in the Senate.

Senate President Gérard Larcher, who had met Emmanuel Macron between the two rounds of the legislative elections, had defended “a useful opposition”.

On purchasing power, the government is thus open to studying the tax exemption of overtime, an idea supported by LR.

The government has however set conditions so that the amendments cannot “impact the spirit of the text”, by doing “too much” or “not enough”, or “degrade” public finances.

He also does not intend to obtain a majority thanks to the abstention of the RN, which some allies contest, who fear, by refusing any discussion with the far right, of “placing the RN at the center of the political game”.

On the left wing of LREM, the president of the Law Commission Sacha Houlié called on him to avoid the “mortal danger” of a negotiation with the LRs alone.

The new method will above all lead, according to Mr. Garrigues, “to a rebalancing at all levels”, between the Assembly and the government, the Senate and the Assembly but also between the Prime Minister, “head of the majority”, and the President of the Republic who will have to put himself “a little behind” the “hyper-presidency”.

“It’s not up to the president to find the compromises”, abounds a member of the majority but Mr. Macron “will continue to be present in a kind of framing”.

In this case, “combat speech is not in order”, warns Mr. Garrigues, referring to the remarks of Mr. Macron on Thursday evening who invited his troops to be “in permanent campaign” and to remain united in ” the battle”.

At the risk of offending Parliament, the government also hopes to find common ground with the “living forces” of the country within the National Council for Refoundation, promised by Emmanuel Macron. “Chiche!” replied CFDT leader Laurent Berger. But without pension reform at the start of the school year.