The view of Montpellier political scientist Michel Crespy on the future of the five-year term after the government was forced to use 49-3 to adopt its pension reform.
Were you surprised by the decision to use 49-3?
It follows from a logic from the moment when, having done their accounts, they realized that they were still ten or fifteen seats below what was needed. But that, until the last moment, we did not know how it was going to turn out. Everything depended on the vote of the LR deputies but not only. There were three Horizons deputies who had declared that they would abstain, the Liot group was divided. The president of the group said: “There are fifteen deputies who are against, and five, we do not know.”
Montpellier political scientist Michel Crespy.
What does the use of 49-3 say for such a reform?
The quinquennium is over, because it is the demonstration that there is no possible majority. LR is too divided. The idea of building a relatively stable majority between Renaissance and LR, as Véran announced a few days ago? This majority does not exist, due to the divisions of LR in particular.
So they can’t pass anything anymore. Tuesday, they were beaten on nuclear, on pensions, they are forced to go through the 49-3. They can no longer vote on anything, it’s over, except on texts where there is total consensus. The reforms are over, there is nothing more to do.
Is dissolution inevitable? Or a redesign, first?
The dissolution would be completely logical. Logic to draw the consequences, to say there is no majority, we will ask the people to give one to someone. The problem is that we are not at all in a situation of alternation. We are in a three-way situation, in which there is no majority for any of the three. So the dissolution will not solve the problem, it risks returning an assembly quite similar to this one, with a little less Renaissance, a little less LFI, and a little more RN.
None of these three opposing forces, alone, could achieve a majority…
There is a two-thirds majority who finds Macron a bad president, there is a two-thirds majority who does not want Le Pen, and there is a two-thirds majority who does not want Mélenchon. How do we do ? If only there was a situation in which we would have a group which would have almost the majority but not quite. But this is not currently the case.
Historically, we find ourselves in an unprecedented situation with these three blocks?
We often had situations in which we wondered whether or not the president was going to enter into cohabitation. But there, in cohabitation with whom? Suppose Borne resigns, which she should do but it won’t change anything. Who is he going to name? The leader of the opposition? But which one? Melenchon? The pen ? And they tried a rapprochement with the right, which was natural, to try to build a piece of at least a parliamentary majority, even if it does not exist in the country. But that’s what just failed.
Are you saying that France is ungovernable?
Yes. Currently, yes. It is ungovernable and irreformable. We can very well have a government like the Belgians had for a year and a half. No government at all, or an interim government that does absolutely nothing, that expedites current affairs. Only the problem is that we have the war in Ukraine, global warming, energy shortage problems, the hospital crisis, which require urgent decisions.
And we can also have a very difficult social situation because the break with the unions is total.