Public Senate, from the bottom without clash

2023-06-17 11:00:00

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MEDIA LETTER. The debates on pensions broadcast by the channel attracted the French. “Public Sénat is not a ready-to-think chain,” says its CEO Christopher Baldelli.

Pair Olivier Ubertalli

Government questions in the Senate.
© XOSE BOUZAS / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP

Published on 06/17/2023 at 11:00 a.m.

Csome doubt its usefulness and vilify its cost of around 350 million euros. In 1969, de Gaulle wanted to reduce it to a simple advisory function. In vain. In 1998, Lionel Jospin described it as an “anomaly among democracies”. “A chamber with so many powers, which is not elected by direct universal suffrage and where alternation is never possible”, he annoys in an interview with the Monde. Ségolène Royal even speaks in 2005 of “democratic anachronism”. The controversies passed. The Senate survived.

During the pension reform, the upper house even showed its usefulness to those who doubted it. It was the arena of constructive debate, where senators of different political colors dealt with substantive issues in a respectful manner. The opposite of Assembly…

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