Presidency of the Finance Commission: "This election will be a test for the credibility of the RN"

Arnaud Benedetti is an associate professor at the University of Paris-Sorbonne and editor-in-chief of the Political and Parliamentary Review.

He published

How are the politicians dead?

- The great malaise of power

FIGAROVOX.

- On Thursday 30 June, the election of the chairman of the Finance Committee will take place.

If it is customary for the elected president to come from the first opposition group, the June 2022 hemicycle offers a particular configuration.

What is at stake in this vote?

Arnaud BENEDETTI.

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It is primarily a political issue since it is a question, through the prism of the new internal balance of power in the Assembly, of measuring what is the first parliamentary opposition force to Emmanuel Macron.

If group logic takes precedence, it is the National Rally, whose number of deputies and partisan homogeneity are the most important, which should have the presidency of the Commission.

If we look in terms of extra-parliamentary currents, intrapolitical and partisan dynamics, ability to forge alliances, rebellious France would then be the perfect candidate to take on this responsibility.

The question is then to know if another hypothesis, that of the Republicans, could take shape in favor of this uncertain struggle.

The other challenge, beyond parliamentary competition, is for the RN on the one hand, and LFI on the other, to have a tool whose institutional weight is both a lever of influence not negligible but also,

, an additional legitimizing factor of their respective brand.

But they will not necessarily make the same use of it: the RN sees it first of all as a device allowing it to strengthen its notabilisation and its capacity to embody a constructive opposition, at least in this beginning of the legislature;

LFI is looking for the possibility of activating a much more offensive counter-power, due to the prerogatives of the Chairman of the Finance Committee.

Read alsoBetween the RN and the Nupes, the battle for the presidency of the finance commission

It should be remembered that the Commission, which controls the finance laws, oversees the application of the latter and can ask to verify on the spot and on documents the use of public money.

Its president is also able to reject amendments to a bill if he considers that the measure is insufficiently or badly financed.

Finally, and this is undoubtedly the most spectacular prerogative, the president enjoys the possibility of accessing the tax declarations of companies or individuals.

The result of the legislative election, like many opinion studies, shows that an atmosphere is emerging which tends to shift the mistigri from the demonization of the RN to the rebellious.

Arnaud Benedetti

The Republicans thus become the arbiters of this vote.

They could be accused of playing into the hands of the far right by voting RN.

The other possibility is to allow the deputy of Nupes to be elected.

Aren't they facing an impasse?

It is clear that by not taking sides, they facilitate the election of an LFI deputy to the presidency of the Commission, implicitly and implicitly ratifying the idea of ​​greater Republican acceptability of LFI parliamentarians, difference from those of the RN.

This bias will not fail to put them at odds with a large part of their electorate which, during the Nupes / RN duels in the second round of the legislative elections, overwhelmingly favored the RN candidates.

It is clear that notwithstanding media and political reflexes, opinion is changing on the question of Republican respectability.

The result of the legislative election, like many opinion polls,

shows that an atmosphere is taking shape which tends to pass the mistigri of the demonization of the RN to the rebellious.

Will the Republicans ignore this shift, by adopting the posture of "those who wash their hands of it", at the risk of causing over time a new militant and electoral haemorrhage towards the ranks of an RN whose attitude very notary at the start of the legislature aims to reassure the electorate of the right and the center to continue its takeover of the conservative camp?

Autonomy is obviously a hard line to maintain when your market shares are being eroded on both sides.

at the risk of causing a new militant and electoral haemorrhage over time towards the ranks of an RN whose very notable attitude at the start of this legislature aims to reassure the right-wing and center electorate to continue its takeover bid on the conservative camp ?

Autonomy is obviously a hard line to maintain when your market shares are being eroded on both sides.

at the risk of causing a new militant and electoral haemorrhage over time towards the ranks of an RN whose very notable attitude at the start of this legislature aims to reassure the right-wing and center electorate to continue its takeover bid on the conservative camp ?

Autonomy is obviously a hard line to maintain when your market shares are being eroded on both sides.

Could an alliance of circumstance with the RN give rise to a “union of the rights” in the long term?

The conditions at this stage do not seem to be met, neither on one side nor on the other.

The RN can rightly consider that its strategy in the end to advance alone on its line has paid off, since the constitution of a parliamentary group that is numerically the largest among the opposition groups is a historic step in the electoral history of this formation.

As for the Republicans, they may consider that notwithstanding the painful result of the presidential election, they have managed to save a group, and that it is all the more urgent to wait until, on their left, the government coalition is likely to cross zones of turbulence which could, when the time comes, bring back voters, even militants.

However, the Gordian knot of

an uninhibited and united right is not decided, as the automatisms and prohibitions inherited from the past have not been transgressed.

The parliamentary rite of passage now facing Marine Le Pen's party is a test.

The installation of the RN as a parliamentary force pushes back in the heads, in the representations, the mechanisms of distancing.

This in turn explains the reaction, to say the least, worried and overplayed by a part of the left which continues to agitate the imagination of a less and less effective “anti-fascism”.

installation of the RN as a parliamentary force pushes back in the heads, in the representations, the mechanisms of distancing.

This in turn explains the reaction, to say the least, worried and overplayed by a part of the left which continues to agitate the imagination of a less and less effective “anti-fascism”.

installation of the RN as a parliamentary force pushes back in the heads, in the representations, the mechanisms of distancing.

This in turn explains the reaction, to say the least, worried and overplayed by a part of the left which continues to agitate the imagination of a less and less effective “anti-fascism”.

If Cornelian choices there are, it is ultimately above all for macronism which, on a whole set of subjects, will have to choose.

Arnaud Benedetti

Isn't this situation the prelude to the "Cornelian choices" that Les Républicains will have to make in the years to come, as Olivier Marleix mentioned?

Olivier Marleix is ​​a parliamentarian who has demonstrated his rectitude both in his parliamentary work and in his determination to oppose Emmanuel Macron.

The positioning of the LR parliamentary group will operate, it is understood, on a case-by-case basis.

Let us not forget, moreover, that the LR deputies owe their victories first to themselves in a context of great difficulty and that this victory is inseparable from their loyalty to an independent line.

The crest line is undoubtedly the most likely approach in the short term, as long as they can leave time to time in a situation where the executive is constrained by an equation without a real majority.

With nevertheless a risk, that of a blocking of the institutions which could consequently involve a dissolution of which one measures that

it would open an unpredictable Pandora's box.

But at this stage all of this is just conjecture.

If there are difficult choices, it is ultimately above all for macronism, which on a whole set of subjects will have to choose: on public finances, between the fight against deficits and "whatever the cost" or on the relationship to secularism and the nation, between the historical model and the "Anglo-Saxon" model for which the brand new Minister of National Education seems to lean.

On these two subjects, Emmanuel Macron will be forced to clarify his positions if he wants to retain part of the right-wing electorate who have been able to join him, especially since he is also dependent on the physicality of the political forces in within its majority.

is only guesswork.

If there are difficult choices, it is ultimately above all for macronism, which on a whole set of subjects will have to choose: on public finances, between the fight against deficits and "whatever the cost" or on the relationship to secularism and the nation, between the historical model and the "Anglo-Saxon" model for which the brand new Minister of National Education seems to lean.

On these two subjects, Emmanuel Macron will be forced to clarify his positions if he wants to retain part of the right-wing electorate who have been able to join him, especially since he is also dependent on the physicality of the political forces in within its majority.

is only guesswork.

If there are difficult choices, it is ultimately above all for macronism, which on a whole set of subjects will have to choose: on public finances, between the fight against deficits and "whatever the cost" or on the relationship to secularism and the nation, between the historical model and the "Anglo-Saxon" model for which the brand new Minister of National Education seems to lean.

On these two subjects, Emmanuel Macron will be forced to clarify his positions if he wants to retain part of the right-wing electorate who have been able to join him, especially since he is also dependent on the physicality of the political forces in within its majority.

on public finances, between the fight against deficits and the "whatever the cost" or on the relationship to secularism and the nation, between the historical model and the "Anglo-Saxon" model for which the brand new seems to lean Minister of National Education.

On these two subjects, Emmanuel Macron will be forced to clarify his positions if he wants to retain part of the right-wing electorate who have been able to join him, all the more so since he is also dependent on the physicality of the political forces in within its majority.

on public finances, between the fight against deficits and the "whatever the cost" or on the relationship to secularism and the nation, between the historical model and the "Anglo-Saxon" model for which the brand new seems to lean Minister of National Education.

On these two subjects, Emmanuel Macron will be forced to clarify his positions if he wants to retain part of the right-wing electorate who have been able to join him, all the more so since he is also dependent on the physicality of the political forces in within its majority.

Eric Coquerel, rebellious deputy is finally the candidate of the Nupes for the presidency of the finance committee.

He was in balance with Valérie Rabault, socialist.

Can this candidacy be understood as a new victory for the radical left over the socialist left?

Everything happens as if the hegemonism of radicality were the compass of the Nupes.

The PS is no longer "an old house", it is at this stage in the process of being transformed into a bed and breakfast of which the rebellious ensure the guardianship.

Mélenchon imposed the alliance on its terms, its agenda as well and also some of its postures.

Social democracy lives in internal exile between François Hollande or Bernard Cazeneuve and a few bricks, very second left, who got down to macronism.

Ms. Rabault had the perfect profile, especially technically, to claim this presidency, but the balance of power is imposed on her.

We are witnessing a frantic race from the left to the ever more left, with a communication whose tempo and form have been preempted by the rebellious,

deliberately provocative and aggressive.

It is a provision which aims to mimic the "surplus" of a left which however has not necessarily succeeded electorally.

The rebellious are behind the RN, the total of the percentages accumulated on the left in the legislative elections is less than in the presidential election.

This permanent exhibition, of which the entry of the rebellious deputies into the Assembly on Tuesday provided an example - in my opinion counterproductive in the long term -, obviously aims to make an impression, especially since it does not correspond to reality power relations in the country, whose cursor is, whether we like it or not, rather oriented to the right.

The victory of the radical left over the social-democratic left is the double defeat of the left: