Who's Playing What Game?

So the GMO law failed by one vote to gain a majority on a procedural question and is temporarily sidelined. The Left was jubilant: Arnaud Montebourg could be seen in the hemicycle rubbing his hands together with pleasure and nearly jumping for joy. The ever-smarmy Jean-François Copé appeared first in the corridors of the Assembly and then on France2 to accept responsibility: j'assume, accident de parcours, etc. But he was so gleeful in accepting responsibility for what might have looked like a serious embarrassment to the majority that one had to ask what his game was. There is plenty of sentiment in the UMP both for and against this bill, so perhaps Copé contrived the "tactical glitch" to soothe hurt feelings or even to make way for further amendments. He didn't seem embarrassed, and no one was issuing any reprimands or censures. Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet was notably silent: no further accusations of cowardice or fecklessness were forthcoming. Whether the bill will be watered down to appease pro-GMO farm groups or watered up to appease eco-conservatives remains to be seen. Probably there will be a little of both, and it will take a genetically modified organism to grow in the arid muck that results.