What do the successive departures of LREM deputies reveal?

• Gard deputy Annie Chapelier left LREM on Monday, recognizing "nothing more" in the macronist movement.
• Since June 2017, a dozen deputies elected under the macronist label have deliberately chosen to distance themselves from the movement, by leaving the party, the parliamentary group, or by sitting as a related member.
• These departures, if they remain a minority in a group of around 300 elected representatives, reveal the diversity of political opinions on subjects such as immigration, security or the environment, as well as the youth of the presidential party. But the management of LREM says not to worry about it.

Like an air of deja vu. MP Annie Chapelier slammed the door of the party La République en Marche on Monday. A week after her colleague Valérie Petit, deputy for the North, the elected member of the Gard is the thirteenth to have distanced herself from the movement, which burst into the National Assembly after the legislative elections of June 2017. At the time , LREM had 309 members and 4 related members sitting in the hemicycle. Since then, some marching deputies have left the party, others have left their parliamentary group or have withdrawn. Today, Emmanuel Macron's party retains 296 seats and 7 related elected representatives. What does this wave of successive departures since 2017 reveal?

This reveals the weaknesses of LREM

Certain deputies left by invoking political divergences, mainly on the ecological and migratory themes, but also territorial or social justice. Thus, it was during the debate on the asylum and immigration bill that the deputy of Vienne Jean-Michel Clément decided to take leave of the group, barely a year after his election. Others followed suit a few months later, and joined him in a new group of deputies, Liberties and Territories.

For historian Jean Garrigues, immigration, like ecology and social policy, is one of the "crystallization points" which reveal "the diversity of the LREM group". "There is a right wing and a left wing. The latter has been much less recognized in the policy pursued for a year, deploring an authoritarian or too liberal inflection, from where certain departures ”, observes the researcher.

Matthieu Orphelin, MP for Maine-et-Loire, left the group in February 2019. Close to Nicolas Hulot, he remembers: "I left to send a signal about the ecological and climatic emergency, because I found that was not up to the challenge ”. Almost a year later, Annie Chapelier also points to ecological themes "insufficiently taken into account" by the presidential party.

It also reveals the youth of the movement

Another reason for rupture, the functioning of the party and the group, which several "ex" LREM deem too rigid. "There is a real problem," says Matthieu Orphelin. “From our first group meeting in July 2017, I said that the rule requiring LREM deputies to vote according to a collective instruction could not work. Richard Ferrand [then president of the group at the National Assembly] hired me, ”he says.

"Historically, political groups have known defections, or fronds, as under Holland, or even de Gaulle," said historian Jean Garrigues. “But the custom was to stay in the party. The difference is that LREM "does not have the solidity necessary to keep these deputies. And they did not have time to get attached to the movement, born in 2016. The link is more superficial, therefore easier to break, ”he summarizes. “It is certain that we saw this less at the PS. We looked at it twice before leaving in dissidence, ”breathes a walker who passed through the socialist ranks.

But these departures remain marginal (and individualistic, according to LREM)

At the party, these departures do not cause concern. "Yes, we regularly lose deputies. Every two or three months, there is one who leaves, or begins to sit as a relative. But it is marginal, and it does not call into question our functioning, ”we sweep the management of LREM.

“The motivations are different each time, there are no substantive differences. Often, these ruptures are linked to tensions against the backdrop of municipal investments or local support, ”we point out within the party. A reference, without naming them, to Valérie Petit, unsuccessful candidate for the LREM nomination to run for mayor of Lille, or Michèle Crouzet, party to embark on the campaign in Sens against the candidate supported by the party.

For the management, no question of "reviewing the mode of operation of the group or the party": "We have rules, procedures, once decisions are made, they are binding on everyone", we continue, deploring resignations aimed at "putting pressure on the collective". The party intends to dismiss the elevator and also put pressure on these dissidents. Stanislas Guerini, head of the movement, allegedly, during a group meeting on Tuesday, brandished the threat of not granting them the LREM nomination during the legislative elections of 2022.

In a LREM group meeting, Le Gendre broached the subject of deputies who left the party while remaining related. "Consistency and responsibility," asks Guerini, who raised the threat of the investiture in 2022. "The choice to no longer assume the label is valid today for tomorrow"

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