Will the call for calm have been heard? Deputy RN Grégoire de Fournas, who had been excluded for 15 days from the National Assembly after having launched “that he return to Africa” in the hemicycle, made his return this Thursday to the Palais Bourbon.
The deputy for Gironde arrived in the hemicycle around 10:00 a.m. for the examination of an LR bill on agricultural pensions. On Twitter, the elected official said he was “happy to resume” his place in “the National Assembly with the same determination to defend the French and particularly those in my constituency, the Médoc”, after a “d’ one month of an unfair exclusion caused by the manipulation of LFI”.
“I would never get used to the idea that we could prevent deputies from expressing themselves and expressing perfectly legitimate positions”, he had upstream in an interview with LCP.
On November 3, the far-right elected aroused a wave of indignation by launching in the hemicycle “that he return to Africa”, during an intervention by Carlos Martens Bilongo (LFI) on migrants. His exit, deemed racist by the other groups in the Assembly, had caused the premature end of the session of questions to the government.
“Rare decision”
Grégoire de Fournas had denied any racist character, assuring to speak of the humanitarian boat Océan Viking then stranded at sea with 234 migrants, and not of Carlos Martens Bilongo, elected black of Val-d’Oise.
He was then sentenced to a temporary exclusion for 15 sitting days and the loss of half of his parliamentary allowance for two months. This “censorship with exclusion” is the heaviest possible disciplinary sanction, an extremely rare decision.
In mid-November, Mr. de Fournas, winemaker by profession, was also pinned by Christophe Pallez, the ethics officer of the National Assembly, for an “ethical breach” after having promoted his wine on social networks.
Threat of disciplinary punishment
Christophe Pallez judged that the deputy was “promoting a private interest (the company of his parents of which he was an employee) as part of his function”, the Twitter account used being the account which he had referenced on the site of the Assembly, according to a parliamentary source.
The ethics officer wrote to Grégoire de Fournas to inform him of this breach and recommend that he “no longer use this account or any other medium claiming his status as a deputy for such activities”.
If the recommendation was not followed, the office of the Assembly, its highest collegiate body, could be seized and impose a disciplinary penalty.