"Elisabeth Borne's roadmap or the agenda of an impeded government"

Benjamin Morel is a lecturer in public law at the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas.

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Benjamin Morel.

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My look risks, and I apologize, to be quite cruel.

It is in fact the agenda of a hindered government.

If you look closely, open sites are in no way innovative.

These are the same themes that have been dragged out since 2017 and whose settlement should already have made it possible to get out of the yellow vests crisis, then from the Covid crisis... The resumption of these themes is in itself an acknowledgment of failure.

But, and this is perhaps even more serious, what has changed is the ambition to treat them.

Most announcements are limited to vague statements of intent or essentially regulatory measures.

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We certainly have the announcement of a few bills, such as on the green industry or digital technology, but as much to say that it does not make a government program.

Emmanuel Macron announced the 100 days, but it looks more like the phoney war.

It is a question of giving the feeling of acting on fundamental subjects, while one remains gun at the foot while waiting for something to happen, which could lead to a favorable evolution of the situation.

The Prime Minister said nothing concrete about wages and purchasing power.

Should we see it as a form of end of cycle for the executive?

The Prime Minister has given the responsibility for negotiations back to the social partners in labor matters.

It's actually quite a good thing.

When we know that the reform of the Labor Code in 2017 was imposed on them, that they were barely consulted and that most of the text was passed by ordinance... we understand that we went from Jupiter to Vulcan, then to Saturn locked up in Tartarus.

The government is now forced to hope that the social partners manage to agree to avoid having to legislate, which it feels incapable of.

Regarding purchasing power, the logic is the same.

The government returns to companies the task of raising wages.

If the politician can no longer act, he must either be forced to act through a strong man (this is populism), or expect nothing more from him, but then, why vote?

Benjamin Morel

It should be noted that the State is also an employer and that if it had a real will, it could increase the index point of civil servants, which has stagnated for 10 years.

We note that there too, it is a question of diverting the responsibility for the crisis of purchasing power by explaining that it is the employers who have the levers.

We thus avoid recriminations, at least we hope so, but we take the risk of showing impotence.

However, our democratic crisis is also a crisis of political impotence.

This type of talk is harmful.

If the politician can no longer act, he must either be forced to act through a strong man (this is populism), or expect nothing more from him, but then, why vote?

How to interpret the postponement of the immigration law?

There again, in a very simple way, it is a question of recognizing an absence of majority.

This is the highlight of recent months of which the French, accustomed to presidentialism, have perhaps not yet become sufficiently aware.

The president cannot do much without a majority, nor can his government.

However, not only are Les Républicains not a reliable partner, but the relative majority Ensemble is itself very divided.

This is all the more the case on this subject.

During the last five years, the first and perhaps the deepest fractures arose on the Collomb law.

If the government were to be stubborn on this text, it should pass it under the conditions of LR.

However, his left wing is obviously not ready for it.

The executive tries to project itself into building sites hoping that by dint of invoking ectoplasms of reforms, enough people believe in them to give them a chance to happen.

Benjamin Morel

It should be remembered that it is Sacha Houille who chairs the Law Commission.

It is on the center left that the rumors of the departure of the majority group are most clearly heard... Here again, this text therefore reflects the deep feeling of powerlessness.

It should be remembered that if the government used article 47-1 on pensions, it was not primarily to be able to use the deadlines specific to a PLFSS.

The objective is essentially to keep in his pocket an article 49 paragraph 3 which he thinks he needs for the immigration law... This 49 paragraph 3, he still has it in his pocket, but the pension reform has put so much the country in tension that it is unusable and that the bill which justified the large one

anything procedural on pensions needs to be pushed back to the fall;

in other words, in terms of the parliamentary agenda,

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The Prime Minister, on the other hand, insisted on the calendar.

But isn't the crisis in France more of a political problem than an agenda problem?

Of course, the two are linked for the executive.

The latter first has a problem of majority, then of relation to public opinion.

To try to solve this problem, he needs to turn the page on pension reform.

The concern obviously is that to turn a page, you have to open another.

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But what if no one wants to work with you on another project?

The executive therefore tries to project itself into projects hoping that by dint of invoking ectoplasms of reforms, enough people believe in them to give them a chance to happen.

One could be sorry for such a strategy, but what else could he do today?