Paris (AFP)
Loss of the absolute majority in the Assembly, internal disputes and Bérézina in the municipal elections: The Republic on the march is playing its survival, while several voices are calling for its dissolution in a new architecture of the presidential majority.
No conquest and several defeats of outgoing Macron-compatible mayors: the evening of the second round of the municipal elections was for the presidential movement "a little worse than expected", euphemized a minister.
Formerly a war machine that had enabled a tidal wave in the legislative elections of June 2017, then a locomotive deemed effective during the Europeans of 2019, the LREM brand lost power, when it was already weakened by the loss of the majority absolute in the National Assembly and open criticism of municipal alliance strategies.
"Perhaps even some candidates for the municipal elections lost precisely because they had the support of LREM", breathes a member of the government, who calls to "think about our political offer" and warns against a "normalization" of the gone and "no longer be in motion".
A reshuffle, which should take place in the coming days, could also create a new leadership crisis, especially if the current boss of the walkers, Stanislas Guerini, had to join the government, a function which is a priori incompatible with that of leader of the majority party.
"And if it is the case, it should not appear as a maneuver to settle the party problem, which Hollande had done by appointing PS first secretary, Harlem Désir, to the government in 2014", warns another minister.
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In hollow, it is the positioning of LREM which is questioned, between "those who think that it is necessary to continue the transformation, including against certain intermediate bodies", and those who advocate a greater rooting in the territories by alliances with the outgoing elected officials: "It is certain that there is a tectonics of the plates on this question", summarizes a minister, who criticizes "a risk of trivialization, therefore disappearance of the party".
Some argue on the contrary for a big aggiornamento: the MEP and former adviser of Emmanuel Macron Stéphane Séjourné thus militates for a pure and simple dissolution of the Republic on the march, when others theorize "a great American Democratic Party" , in a form that remains to be defined.
Because the attempts to federate the presidential majority have so far fizzled: announced in September at the universities of LREM, a "liaison office" that had to integrate the parties that had participated in the Renaissance list - the MoDem, Agir, the Radical Movement - never really took place, François Bayrou being rather reluctant. Since then, only a modest joint "executive office" of LREM and MoDem has been held once.
"The question is not whether we do like the UMP or the plural left in their time", sweeps a minister, "the question is not that of LREM, MoDem or Agir, but c 'is that of the President of the Republic in 2022 ", he continues, advocating a statutory status quo" so as not to waste time on these secondary questions ", while a congress of LREM must take place at the end of the 'year.
A minister from the left goes in the same direction: "Macron will not be the candidate of The Republic on the march in 2022, it will be broader than that, it is the meaning of his political commitment to exceed the parties", discount he.
After the launch of Territoire de progres, a platform piloted by ministers Jean-Yves Le Drian and Olivier Dussopt, ex-PS who intend to re-tie the center-left to the majority - an initiative that is generally welcomed by walkers -, the announcement Sunday by the ex-LREM deputy Aurélien Taché of the constitution of a new movement, "We, tomorrow", was however perceived as a dislocation of the base that had brought Emmanuel Macron to power in 2017.
And there are also fears that Edouard Philippe, crowned with a victory at the municipal elections in Le Havre, will seek to federate his troops. A fortiori if he had to leave Matignon during a reshuffle.
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