🇫🇷Budget underway
Bayrou survives censure motion on budget, Nouveau Front Populaire under duress, Sarkozy now has his electronic bracelet (and more court cases), and Bayrou launches debate on “being French”
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This week
🏦Bayrou survives censure motion on budget
🌹Nouveau Front Populaire under duress
🔒Sarkozy now has his electronic bracelet (and more court cases)
🇫🇷Bayrou launches debate on “being French”
🏦Bayrou survives censure motion on budget
Let’s start this dispatch right: Prime Minister François Bayrou overcame a censure motion this week and succeeded in having his 2025 state budget adopted, even causing some chaos amongst the opposition.
However, there’s still one definite and one potential censure motion coming next week, adding some more spice to proceedings.
The first came as a reaction to Bayrou’s use of Article 49.3 of the French constitution to push through the state budget, as per the short explainer in the Weekly Dispatch of last week.
Having benefited in no small part from Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National choosing not to censure the government, and the Parti Socialiste choosing to move away from the Nouveau Front Populaire and taking an opposing position to presidential hopeful Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Only 128 deputies voted in favour of the first censure motion, put forward by LFI group leader, Mathilde Panot and 90 deputies, with only six socialists voting in favour of it as the censure motion fell short of the 289 votes required to bring down the government.
The reason for the “support” of the budget, if you’ll believe the various statements being made, is that France has been left in a precarious position for too long, and both the centre-left PS and the far-right RN made a choice to ensure a budget was in place and some stability could take over after 217 days of political instability.
Naturally, this was followed by a 49.3 on the revenue section of the Social Security budget, which saw the same censure motion being put forward by La France Insoumise, and which will lead to another vote of confidence sometime early next week.
On top of this, there is a potential third 49.3 that will be used for a final segment of the annual budget, which will cause him more work as he attempts to save his government from the same fate as Michel Barnier’s.
However, he has some cause for hope.
With the first failing to succeed, and the second can be expected to go along the same lines, there is only one-third expected censure motion that could provoke problems, with the PS having previously stated that they would either depose or vote for it.
But even then, you’re only adding 60 deputies to the 128 who voted the first one, leaving a gap of 101 deputies for a successful censure.
Which means…
🌹Nouveau Front Populaire under duress
I mean, what is a French left-wing coalition without some drama and crisis?
With the political games playing out in the Assemblée Nationale, we naturally found the same old fault lines opening up within the Nouveau Front Populaire, with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (LFI) trying to create more chaos, the Parti Socialiste (PS) refusing to go along with it, and then being called “traitors” as a result.
With the PS having spent weeks negotiating their non-censure of the government as part of the 2025 budget, LFI had been attempting to strong-arm them into following their position.
However, as all you keen readers know, the PS are somewhat of an up-and-coming party now, and are attempting to wrestle back control of the left from the far-left firebrands, with the Ecologists (EELV) and Communists (PCF) stuck in the middle.
Of course, Mélenchon has a very big issue with people not agreeing with him, and went on the attack in his blog this past Friday, calling Thursday an “odious day” and accusing the PS, the EELV, and the Communist party (??) of being supporters of the co-management of Macronism, which knowing Mélenchon probably includes the entirety of the right.
C’est la vie.
“So we have to write it in black and white and in bold: we refuse to be confused with the supporters of the co-management of Macronism. The vote of censure on the State budget or the law on the financing of Social Security is an insurmountable divide for us. Read again: unsurpassable!” - Jean-Luc Mélenchon in his blog post on Friday 7 February.
Of course, all of this forms a major part of Mélenchon’s attempt to force his “allies” to step back into line and support his second censure motion early next week, as well as the potential third censure motion next week.
Unfortunately, when you bully your former party for several years, and you have socialist deputies actively showing toxic text messages to showcase this bullying, you know you’ve probably severely overplayed your hand.
Which leaves the Union of the Left in a precarious position.
🔒Sarkozy now has his electronic bracelet (and more court cases)
In other news, Sarkozy has now had his electronic bracelet fitted, following the result of the wiretapping case covered back in December in your favourite publication.
For those looking for a quick refresher, former President Nicolas Sarkozy was convicted as part of the Bismuth Affair just before Christmas, which revolved around the accusations of “corruption” and “influence peddling” through allegedly bribing a judge.
Having been convicted in 2023, he and his co-defendants appealed the verdict, which was rejected and led to Nicolas Sarkozy stating he would refer the matter to the European Court of Human Rights.
And in the meantime, Sarkozy is now only abled to leave his home between 08h00 and 20h00, with special exceptions on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays where he is allowed to stay out until 21h30 in the evening.
However, this isn’t a treat for good behaviour. This is because he is on trial three afternoons a week on the allegations of Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign, which you can read a quick background on in our 2023 dispatch.
🇫🇷Bayrou launches debate on “being French”
To finish off the week on a debate that will cause plenty of drama over the next few weeks and months: after a suggestion of a debate by Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, on “what it means to be French”, PM François Bayrou has said that he finds this debate to be too narrow and that it needs to be expanded.
“What does it give as a right? What does it impose as a duty? What are the benefits? And how does that commit you to being a member of a national community? What do you believe in when you're French?” -
This follows a series of events that have been igniting tensions in the Assemblée, with a vote to restrict the French right of Jus soli in Mayotte, as well as Bayrou discussing illegal immigration and how this evokes a “feeling of submersion” in certain regions, but most notably overseas territories.
“Anyone who is confronted with the situation in Mayotte, and it is not the only place in France, measures that the word submersion is the most appropriate. Because an entire country, ... a whole community of French departments is confronted with waves of illegal immigration such that they reach 25% of the population” - Francois Bayrou during a question session in the Assemblée
Having answered this question from a PS deputy who accused him of borrowing vocabulary from the far-right, adding the quip that “it's not the words that are shocking, it's the realities”, you can expect more of this kind of argumentative discussion in the immediate future.
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#exitmelanchon x)
It would be nice with identity politics focusing on how to make all humans legal as regarding migration