Why LFI could file impeachment proceedings against Emmanuel Macron depending on the choice of Prime Minister ?

This Sunday, August 18, La France Insoumise announced its intention to file a request for the impeachment of Emmanuel Macron if he does not appoint Lucie Castets as Prime Minister.

La France Insoumise threatens to initiate impeachment proceedings against Emmanuel Macron, accused of “institutional coup against democracy” for his refusal “to take note” of the results of the July legislative elections, in a text published in La Tribune on Sunday.

“We give this platform a concrete role of solemn warning”, write the co-signatories, including the leader of the Insoumis Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the party coordinator Manuel Bompard and the head of the LFI deputies Mathilde Panot. Emmanuel Macron “must know that all constitutional means will be used to dismiss him rather than subject us to his dirty trick against the basic rule of democracy: in France, the only master is the popular vote”, they insist.

While Macron must consult the political forces this Friday, August 23, with a view to forming a government, nearly a month and a half after the elections, the Insoumis warn the president who “is about to appoint a head of government without taking into account the political result” of these legislative elections, which placed the left united within the New Popular Front (193 deputies) in the lead (193 deputies), but far from the absolute majority (289 deputies).

On July 23, Macron ruled out the possibility of appointing NFP representative Lucie Castets to Matignon, arguing that she would not succeed in bringing together a sufficient base for the position. ;Assembly to govern. Since then, the names of the LR president of Hauts-de-France Xavier Bertrand, or even the former socialist Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, have circulated in particular.

"The decision of the Head of State" can be described as an institutional coup against democracy, deplore the Insoumis. They therefore invoke article 68 of the Constitution, which allows Parliament to dismiss the president for ” failure to perform his duties manifestly incompatible with the exercise of his mandate”.

“It is obvious that the refusal to acknowledge a legislative election and the decision to ignore it constitute a reprehensible failure to comply with the basic requirements of the presidential mandate”, argue the signatories of the platform.

Obstacles

Such a procedure must, however, overcome several obstacles. First step: convince the Assembly and the Senate to constitute themselves as a “High Court”. This involves a proposed resolution that must be successively validated by the Bureau of the Assembly (the NFP has at least 12 votes out of 22), then adopted in the Laws Committee, and in the Chamber by a two-thirds majority. A similar process must then be carried out in the Senate.

Second step: once the High Court has been constituted, it has one month to rule, by secret ballot, on the dismissal, again by a two-thirds majority. “If this means of action against Macron's coup were to be used, it would obviously have to be carefully explained to our people and its use methodically organized”, argue the Insoumis.

If LFI, with 72 deputies, can theoretically submit its resolution proposal alone (it takes 1/10th of the 577 deputies to do so), the radical left party says it wants to act on a “as collective a basis as possible”.

“This is why we believe that “It is up to the leaders of the parties in our coalition and the presidencies of our parliamentary groups to debate it and make their respective decisions,” he says. In this perspective, the leader of the environmentalists Marine Tondelier, questioned by La Tribune, evades: “I dare not imagine that Emmanuel Macron will not appoint Lucie Castets. In any case, my energy and that of the Environmentalists are primarily used to ensure that he does so,” she replies.