From our correspondent
PARIS – Thousands of demonstrators shouted “Burn, burn!” As Macron passed the cardboard through the crowd and was finally thrown into the flames, the fire broke out in front of riot police, barricaded behind barricades and an armored car in Concorde Square.
It is here, in this vast space in front of the National Assemblycrossed the Seine, where they were guillotined Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette But also Danton and RobespierreIt is in this square in 1830 optimistically renamed “Della Concordia” that angry Parisians pour into the sunset against the president, prime minister Elizabeth Bourne and the entire government. No agreement, just anger.
personal hate
Emmanuel Macron’s decision to bypass parliament to impose pension reform with Article 49.3 of the constitution exacerbated the social anger that exploded in November 2018 with the start of the yellow vest revolution, and which has never disappeared. Even the personal hatred against the head of state – albeit democratically and clearly elected – which has sometimes remained smoldering in recent years, for example during periods of pandemic or on the occasion of the last presidential elections, when the French responded – perhaps because of the last time – to the call to vote whoever Marine Le Pen opponent. At that time Macron swore he understood, and promised he would listen more to his compatriots The prime minister’s seat was entrusted to a former socialist like Elizabeth Bourne, who with her “social sensitivity” was called upon to balance the president’s technocratic and liberal style.
100 thousand tons of garbage
This project has failed, Prime Minister Bourne is the most hated face of reform and the spontaneous rallies on the Place de la Concorde do not allow us to predict anything good about the climate of the coming weeks and months, while the capital is inundated. With more than 10,000 tons of accumulated garbage (train strikes, planes, buses, schools and even garbage collectors).
If the square is wild, crossing the bridge is there National Assembly in the midst of counting deputies and maneuvers At the last moment to respond to the boss’s action by force. The disputed Article 49.3 itself provides the means: if a majority of MPs vote on a motion of censure, the law has just passed, and with it the government.
Monday vote
A hundred motions of censure were submitted in the Fifth Republic, and only one (the 1962 motion that forced the resignation of the Pompidou government) was approved. But this time there is a proposal that could be successful, or at least close to it. Introduced by Representative Charles de Courson of Léoute’s small group (centrists, Corsican separatists, dissident socialists), it has the power to rally everyone’s votes, from left-wing extremists to libyans.
It will be voted on on Monday, when 287 votes would be needed to bring down the government. Adding the Liot (20), the radical left (149), the lepenists (88) and the independents (5), we arrive at 262. There are still 25 votes missing, which could have come from the Republican ranks (61), the Gaullist right once considered a potential pillar of government, has instead become a threat. In any case, Prime Minister Bourne appears to be close to quitting: “I know I’m a fuse,” she says. Without it, Macron will seek a new restart in the last four long years of his term.
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