French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne comfortably survived a no-confidence vote brought against her by a broad alliance of leftist opponents on Monday.
An official vote count showed that 146 lawmakers voted in favor of the motion. The motion called for an absolute majority of 289 votes to precipitate the fall of the government.
While the result is in little doubt, it was conceived as a demonstration of intent by the Nupes alliance – the largest bloc in opposition to the ‘Ensemble!’ Emmanuel Macron’s centrist – to make life difficult for the president in parliament.
But as the Nupes alliance is made up of 151 parliamentarians, this meant that five of them chose not to vote on the no-confidence motion, which could be interpreted as a positive sign by Borne and his government.
“We should be debating the issues the French are facing, this vote of no confidence is unfair,” the prime minister told parliament shortly before the vote.
“This vote of no confidence is just a political tactic (…) Let’s move together to a culture of compromise,” he added.
After enjoying a comfortable majority in the House during his first term, the newly re-elected Macron lost his absolute majority in Parliament in the June legislative elections and can no longer count on the House to stamp his reform agenda.
Instead, Macron and his government are faced with negotiating the draft legislation, taking a degree of control of the process out of their hands.
The no-confidence motion was expected to fail after the conservative Les Republicains party and Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National said they would abstain.
“You are, Mrs Borne, a democratic anomaly (…) you have no legitimacy, neither political nor parliamentary,” Mathilde Panot, head of the France Unbowed group, the main component of the Nupes alliance, told the Assembly.
“Those who do not vote on this no-confidence vote will be supporters of their policies,” she added ahead of the vote.
Now that the no-confidence motion is out of the way, parliament will soon begin discussing the 20 billion euro inflation relief package released last week by the government.
Source: CNN Brasil
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