Paris: On Tuesday, 17 September, the bureau of L’Assemblée Nationale, the National Assembly or the Lower House of the French Parliament examined the admissibility of the proposed resolution to impeach the President of France filed by the left-wing party, La France Insoumise (LFI) on 4 September signed by 84 deputies.
The LFI hopes to oust Macron well before his mandate comes to an end. The fiery young President’s refusal to appoint Lucie Castets, the leftist New Popular Front (NFP) coalition’s candidate as Prime Minister had sparked outrage among the NFP deputies since the left-wing alliance had nevertheless won the majority votes with 193 out of 577 in the snap legislative elections in July.
Much to LFI’s delight, the request for the dismissal of Emmanuel Macron obtained the green light from the bureau of the National Assembly on Tuesday, by 12 votes to 10. The highest executive body of the lower house deemed admissible the resolution proposal filed by all the Insoumis deputies and a handful of deputies from the ecologist and communist parties. Even though the Insoumis cry victory with this symbolic first step for the adoption of their text, it may actually never see the light of day.
What are the next steps for the text? The text will then be sent to the Laws Committee, which should include it in its agenda. However it is under no obligation to act with haste. Once the text has been passed by the Committee, it will be presented to the Assembly. This is where the procedure has very little chance of succeeding: the impeachment of the President must be approved by two-thirds of parliamentarians, that is, 385 deputies.
La France Insoumise only has 72 deputies and the Socialist Party which belongs to the left-wing NFP alliance has already warned that it will vote "unanimously" against this procedure which, according to them, risks "giving new legitimacy" to the head of state because it considers it "doomed to failure". The Communist Party, also of the NFP alliance wants "the debate to take place", but it will "surely be in the majority to not vote for the resolution", indicated their representative.
LFI cannot count on the support of the right-wing National Rally either, whose leader Marine Le Pen called the “extreme left’s” resolution a “cunning smoke screen tactic to try to make people forget about its several hand in glove arrangements with the Macronie. (Macron’s entourage).”
If the text indeed manages to get passed in the National Assembly, it would then have to be voted upon in the Senate or the Upper House of the French Parliament where the left is even more of a minority. Ultimately both houses of the Parliament will meet at the High Court to decide the final fate of the President of the French Republic.
Former Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal who belongs to Macron’s centrist party, Ensemble pour la République declared during the meeting of the bureau of the Assembly that "this motion and debate are a declaration of war on our institutions", describing its authors as "agents of permanent destabilization.”
According to Parliamentary sources, the dissolution of the National Assembly called for by Emmanuel Macron cost it almost 29 million euros out of a total budget of 662 million euros in 2024.
