French deputies will elect the president of the National Assembly in a scenario of unprecedented fragmentation | International

France continues moving towards the unknown. This Thursday, in an unprecedented context of a parliament divided into three sections and without a clear majority after the legislative elections of July 7, French deputies will vote for the new president of the National Assembly, where the left-wing coalition, grouped in the New Popular Front (NFP), won against all odds against the National Regrouping (RN), which all surveys had indicated as the favorite. The vote scheduled for noon will be important not only because it will set the stage for the new political configuration of the Chamber and the relations of forces between the factions, but also because it will confirm or not the solidity of the NFP and allow us to verify its real possibilities to govern.

After achieving a relative majority with only 195 deputies (182 from the Unitary Coalition and 13 from the so-called Miscellaneous Left) out of the 289 needed to reach an absolute majority, an exclusively NFP government – accepting that Macron agreed to appoint the first minister chosen by the NFP – would probably be overthrown within a few months, so the coalition will have to make agreements with other formations if it does not want to see its hopes fade. It is therefore of importance that the NFP, embroiled in a power struggle between France Insoumise (LFI) and the Socialist Party (PS) and still unable to agree on a candidate for the post of prime minister, has finally achieved this Wednesday to nominate a common candidate for the presidency of the Assembly, after weeks of negotiations. André Chassaigne, deputy for Puy-de-Dôme (northern France) and president of the Democratic and Republican Left group, which also includes the Communists, has been appointed after the withdrawal of environmentalist Cyril Chatelain. “We have the collective legitimacy to preside over the National Assembly,” he wrote in a tweet.

In contrast to them, on the spectrum of the right and center, the Macronist and outgoing president of parliament, Yaël Braun-Pivet, has been nominated; deputy of Horizon – Edouard Philippe’s party which is part of the presidential coalition – Naima Mouchou; Republican deputy Anne Genevard and centrist Charles de Courson, who at 72 is the oldest deputy in the Assembly. The presidential election can have one, two or three rounds. To pass the first and second rounds, the candidate needs to obtain an absolute majority and only a relative majority in the event of a third round. Given the division of parliament into three large factions, none of them should be able to elect a candidate in the first round, which gives particular importance to the appointment of candidates capable of building bridges with other groups or factions.

RN, whose prominence has declined considerably since defeat In the legislative elections, in which it finished third in terms of seats – a relative failure if one takes into account that the formation of Le Pen and Jordan Bardella obtained the most votes and went from 89 to 143 seats just three years before the next presidential elections -, the outgoing vice president of the National Assembly, Sébastien Chenu, will present. The far-right politician, who lost to Braun-Pivot in 2022, according to his account, has no illusions Figaro. Both he and Le Pen are aware of the isolation imposed on them by the other parties, through the cordon imposed to prevent them from coming to power in the legislative elections. In fact, the NFP has these days advocated a cordon to prevent the RN from accessing the positions of the Assembly Board – composed of 22 members in charge of the organization and internal functioning of the parliament – and the presidency of committees and parliamentary delegations. For their part, the Macronists have assured that they will maintain their veto of the RN and the LFI, while Anne Genevard, the LR candidate for the presidency of the Assembly, has declared herself adverse to their exclusion.

The disunity generated in its electorate by the NFP’s split and its inability to select a candidate for prime minister has been making headlines in the French press for several weeks. Some analysts even feared that they would not be able to attend this Thursday’s vote with a single candidate. This morning, Marine Tondelier, the leader of the environmentalists, expressed her fatigue and great disappointment at the “leadership war” between the LFI and the PS, in which the environmentalists and the Communists have been reluctantly participating since July 7. “The hope (which was born in the legislative elections) has turned into anger, our joy has turned into shame,” said Tondelier, who believes that the dispute within the left benefits Marine Le Pen’s National Rally.

The unknowns posed by the future reconstitution of Parliament include the unprecedented nature of the durability of a resigned government and the serious doubts raised by the rest of the parties regarding the separation of powers, due to the fact that some ministers will, exceptionally, combine their ministerial positions with the positions of deputy. This Tuesday afternoon, French President Emmanuel Macron accepted the resignation of Gabriel Attal’s government, although he will continue to rule temporarily and with limited power. The transitional management of the executive, which consists of making administrative decisions without political influence, could be extended until the beginning of the new academic year, in particular to ensure the proper development of the Olympic Games. A completely unprecedented situation in the history of the Fifth Republic – the first time this happened was in 1962, Pompidou’s transitional government lasted only nine days – and which could be extended even longer given the composition of the National Assembly, without a clear majority.

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Gabriel Attal, recently elected president of the Macronist group renamed Ensemble pour la République (EPR), is determined to try to capitalize on this new scenario, aware that the parliament has become the new center of gravity of French politics. The resigned prime minister, whom the press has dubbed for some time as “Child Macron” and who was called “little brother” by the president himself, has been keeping his distance from Macron, who is increasingly isolated after his decision to dissolve parliament without consulting the government and criticized by a large part of his own movement. Attal said in an interview on the TF1 channel this Tuesday that his group was working on “an action pact for the French” with “proposals of measures and commitments” that he will propose to the rest of the groups with whom he will meet. In the coming days, with exceptions, he emphasized the RN and France Insoumise (LFI). The 35-year-old politician also took advantage of the occasion to attack the divisions within the left and pointed to the “catastrophic spectacle” that the French are witnessing. “We hear about the people, about the political structures, it is the party before the country,” he denounced.

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