For now, they are only scratching the negotiating table, but the knives are sharp within the outgoing majority.
Where everyone is preparing to get into the hard part, while Emmanuel Macron's victory kicks off bitter discussions on legislative nominations, the creation of a single party, future groups in the Assembly... "With us, it's going to go all the way.
It is from Monday that the balances will be made.
There will be plenty of settling of scores, ”predicts a close adviser to the re-elected president.
Said with less euphemism by a parliamentary source, "it's going to bleed"...
Who remembers the tussle of Richard Ferrand and François Bayrou in 2017, in the middle of the Élysée village hall, epilogue to stormy negotiations, knows how far the period can raise the temperature.
However, five years later, the equation is far more complex.
It is necessary to reckon, this time, with the outgoing deputies, but also to find room for the allied parties of the left and right wings, in particular that of Édouard Philippe, Horizons, and rallied from all sides.
A thorny file
“The line is to maintain the outgoing LREM, MoDem, Agir, who have done their job and that we replace with LREM and MoDem those who do not leave in these groups”, advances one of the co-founders. of En Marche, Jean-Marc Borello, adding: "And Horizons must win constituencies of conquest".
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To manage this thorny issue, the president has chosen a close friend: Richard Ferrand, president of the National Assembly, who has the upper hand and has been having discreet interviews with the barons of the majority for many months.
Knowing that, as in 2017, Emmanuel Macron will himself carry out a final sweep of all the constituencies.
With this objective, while his troops expect difficult legislative elections: the quest for an absolute, disciplined majority, so as not to depend on auxiliary forces.
If the assembly of the mosaic has everything of a "black box", according to a deputy, several voices in high places nevertheless assure that "a large number of nominations will fall fairly quickly".
"Next week", even believes a manager, not without taking precautions: "But you know the relationship to Emmanuel Macron's time..."
"Everyone at home, otherwise I'll kill you"
A history, half joker, half annoyed: “If Édouard Philippe is at 100, François Bayrou will want to be at 200!
Olivier Dussopt wants 50. And Barbara Pompili says:
I want some too!
We are going to present 2700 candidates in 2700 circos!
No one ventures, at least officially, to put forward quantified objectives.
But everyone will scrupulously make their accounts at the end and are ready to play the balance of power.
Especially Philip.
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“He is waiting to see how the negotiations go,” breathes a Walker, as the tension has been mounting for months.
The rivalries on the right flank of the majority, as with LREM, are already sweating.
"If he has a deputy, it's already a victory!"
He starts from nothing”, stings a Macronist, when an elected Horizons sighs: “We don’t expect anyone to give us a gift…” So much for the atmosphere, at a time when the duel with Marine Le Pen still commanded to put on a good face…
It was to avoid having to negotiate for each text, against a background of struggles for his succession, in other words to have his hands free, that Macron displayed from the evening of the first round his desire to create a single party, "in a way UMP”, translates a relative.
And, he also whispers to himself, that he is toying with the idea of having only one group in the Assembly.
What Édouard Philippe and François Bayrou do not want.
The beginning of an arm wrestling, like "everyone at home, otherwise I'll kill you", downright loose a faithful Macronist.
“He will do everything to avoid a coalition and to prevent power from being transferred from the Élysée to Matignon”, predicts an old acquaintance.
Before that, it will already be necessary to cross a new hurdle, that of the legislative elections.
