After the shift to the right implied by the immigration law, is a government coalition with LR possible? Fragile hypothesis.
A reshuffle on the entire right? There are many signs of an imminent team change at the top of the executive branch. Since the passage of the immigration law in December, the left wing of the government has been in the hot seat: several ministers have played with fire by expressing their opposition to the text, hardened and voted hand in hand with the deputies of the Republicans (and the National gathering). Could Emmanuel Macron push the right to the point of inviting LR to the government?
Until now, if the head of state has governed with personalities from both the left and the right, the latter have always had to leave their original party to join the presidential camp. If members of the Republicans were called to join the executive while keeping their colors, we would then enter a coalition government. A hypothesis which may seem attractive to the president, but which has never yet convinced LR.
Since Emmanuel Macron lost his majority in the Assembly, the question of a coalition government has already been raised several times. The day after the legislative elections, Elisabeth Borne welcomed representatives of opposition groups in turn to test the waters. The Republicans, considered the best candidates for an agreement, had rejected the idea. “We campaigned in the opposition, we are in the opposition, we will remain in the opposition,” insisted Christian Jacob. “There is no reason for us to save Emmanuel Macron’s skin,” emphasized Aurélien Pradié.
LR has no more reason to “save the skin” of the Head of State today, even if the immigration law sequence demonstrated that they were ready to work as close as possible to the executive. As proof, the meeting in Matignon on December 14, which brought Elisabeth Borne, Gérald Darmanin, Franck Riester, LR deputies Eric Ciotti and Olivier Marleix and LR senator Bruno Retailleau around a table, to draw the contours of a compromise on the text of the law.
Some figures from the right-wing party have defended a Macronist government agreement in the past. Even before the legislative elections, Philippe Juvin launched a column calling for a “majority contract” with the presidential party. The column only collected three signatures. Sarkozy’s former minister Jean-François Copé also defended “a government pact”. A sermon in the desert.
The sequence on pension reform, at the start of 2023, put the idea of ??a coalition back on the table: former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe himself called for a “coalition with all those who recognize themselves in the central bloc, LR to the elected representatives of the left who do not find themselves in the Nupes”. Proposal remained a dead letter.
Five months before the European elections, it is difficult to imagine that the LR leadership, firmly determined since 2022 to remain in opposition to Macron, takes the risk of suddenly deviating from its line.
