A frank “yes” from the majority, accompanied by the “but” of oppositions. This Wednesday afternoon, the National Assembly largely approved the roadmap for the last 18 months of the new government. Following the general policy speech by Prime Minister Jean Castex and then a three-hour debate, 345 out of 577 MPs supported the strategy for the end of the quinquennium. A total of 177 elected representatives preferred to vote against and 43 abstained - the rest did not take part in the ballot.
Read also: Recovery plan, ecology, territories ... What to remember from the general policy discourse of Castex
"Absolute priority" to the fight against unemployment via a recovery plan, desire to "rearm" the territories, bill "against separatism" ... "We have 600 days before us, 600 days to protect the French" , hammered Jean Castex to the rostrum, before taking responsibility for his government.
The tightest of the three confidence votes
A custom provided for by the Constitution without being compulsory, this ballot turns out to be the tightest of the three votes of confidence summoned to the National Assembly since the election of Emmanuel Macron (370 votes against 67 in July 2017; 363 votes against 163 in June 2019). Jean Castex is therefore less supported than his predecessor, Édouard Philippe. A translation of the departure of around thirty "rebellious" deputies, who have left the ranks of LREM to join other benches.
But the government still has an absolute majority of support, divided between the main group, La République en Marche , and its allies MoDem and Agir ensemble . Almost all of them voted for it.
LR opposes a prime minister from his ranks
On the opposition benches, the deputies refused to give a blank check to the executive. As usual, three contingents of parliamentarians have shown themselves united in their hostility to the executive: the elected officials of La France Insoumise , turned against a government which "does not know where it is going" ; the communists and their overseas allies , deploring "ecological indifference" and "social injustice" ; and those of the National Rally , including Marine Le Pen.
The others did not vote as one man:
● the first opposition group, Les Républicains , was mainly opposed to a prime minister nevertheless from their ranks, described as "a right-wing island in an ocean of" at the same time "" . Its president, Damien Abad, castigated "three years of tax increases" , "helplessness in the face of uncontrolled immigration" and a "dogmatic" ecology ;
● most socialists voted against a policy deemed "vertical" and "unfair" . PS number one, Olivier Faure, and 10, however, abstained;
● despite the emphasis placed on “territories”, the Libertés et espaces group judges, through the voice of its president Philippe Vigier, that “the decisive turning point has not yet been achieved” ;
● “vigilant and proposing” , the president of the UDI and Independents group , Jean-Christophe Lagarde, abstained, like most of his troops;
● created last May by ex-walkers who hold a social-ecological line, the group Écologie Démocratie Solidarité voted in majority against the strategy of the executive.
Find at a glance the detailed vote of all deputies on the website of the National Assembly .
