The rumor has been running for months, the announcement was to be made after the municipal elections. Then the Covid-19 epidemic changed their calendar. A ninth political group with dissident “ walkers ” could see the light of day in the Assembly, as evidenced by the publication last week of extracts from a provisional profession of faith in Les Echos . The government was quick to react, especially this Wednesday through its spokesperson. The creation of such a group, all the more with deputies La République en Marche (LREM), would be " a setback, not to say a political misinterpretation ", regretted Sibeth Ndiaye, after the Council of Ministers .
Called “ Ecology, democracy, solidarity ”, this new entity would focus on the themes of ecology and the social. In total, this space could unite around thirty elected officials, whose main common point will be to break with certain orientations taken by Emmanuel Macron since the start of the quinquennium and with the functioning of the presidential majority.
" If that were the case, I can only regret that the ferment of division is at work in a period (...) which is absolutely exceptional, even though we will have discussions to have inside the majority obviously on what will be the end of the quinquennium ”, added Sibeth Ndiaye.
A motley collective, focused on the left
For the past few days, a list with around twenty names has been circulating to form this ninth group. There are ex- “walkers” like Matthieu Orphelin - close to Nicolas Hulot -, members of the “social democratic collective” like Delphine Bagarry or Martine Wonner, “walkers” on the left wing such as Aurélien Taché, Guillaume Chiche or Cédric Villani (still a member of the LREM group) and some non-members such as the former Socialist Minister for Ecology, Delphine Batho.
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Most of the elected officials cited are part of the initiative of 60 parliamentarians with an ecological and social fiber who also unveiled this Wednesday their thirty proposals for "the day after" the coronavirus crisis. On the program: revaluation of caregiver salaries, energy renovation plan or even universal income. The leader of the "walkers", Gilles Le Gendre, saw in these proposals " political ulterior motives ", " very correlated with the subject of the 9th group ".
For LREM number one, Stanislas Guerini, things are " fairly active and imminent ". The number of nine political groups would be a record. And the majority group - currently made up of 295 members - is threatened with losing the absolute majority of 289 seats which it currently holds for itself alone, a strong symbol even if it can always rely on the constant support of the fifty elected MoDem and the ten elected Agir.