After following the presidential election campaign and then the legislative elections on a daily basis, The world gives you an appointment every Friday, at 6 p.m., to continue to follow political news.
News of the week. The National Assembly in battle order after a week of internal elections
The Palais-Bourbon will have been at the heart of a crazy political week punctuated by internal elections, marking the opening of the 16e legislature. After the election of Yaël Braun-Pivet, the first woman to become President of the National Assembly, on Tuesday, then that of the twenty-one other members of the office, Wednesday, it is the heads of the eight permanent committees who have been appointed , Thursday.
With its eighty-nine deputies, the National Rally (RN) won two of the six vice-presidencies of the Hemicycle. The election of Sébastien Chenu and Hélène Laporte was made possible by the votes of some of the deputies of the majority and of the right. If the Green MPs launched a last-minute attempt at a Republican front, it proved unsuccessful.
The other vice-presidential positions were obtained by the socialist Valérie Rabault (Socialists and relatives, Nupes), Naïma Moutchou (Horizons, Together!), Elodie Jacquier-Laforge (Democrat, Together!) and Caroline Fiat (La France insoumise, Nudes). At the questure, Eric Ciotti (Les Républicains) saved his seat – the only one reserved for the opposition –, while Marie Guévenoux and Eric Woerth were elected for the majority.
At the end of another stormy morning on Thursday, the New People’s Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) this time won a key battle with the election of the “rebellious” deputy Eric Coquerel at the head of the prestigious and strategic finance commission, facing the RN candidate, Jean-Philippe Tanguy.
At the end of this distribution of positions, the Assembly is therefore ready to get down to legislative work while the oppositions find themselves in a position of strength, for lack of an absolute majority for the presidential camp. The executive, pressed by the political situation, should not delay in putting itself, too, in battle order.
While Emmanuel Macron was traveling abroad, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, consulted, over the week, the ten group presidents of the Assembly. She must report to the Head of State on Friday with, on the menu of their discussion, the “composition of a new government of action” and the establishment of a ” roadmap “ for the next few months. The time of the reshuffle, necessary after the political setback recorded during the legislative elections, the defeat of three ministers then the departure of Mme Braun-Pivet for the perch, is announced for the next few days.
The image. Yaël Braun-Pivet, first woman elected president of the National Assembly
Sixty-four years after the election of Jacques Chaban-Delmas as President of the National Assembly for the 1re legislature of the Ve Republic, Yaël Braun-Pivet, deputy for Yvelines, became the first woman to occupy the perch of the Palais-Bourbon. A historic moment that the former president of the law commission noted from the start of her speech: “This country once had the ambition to convey a message of which you are, today, the guarantors: men are born and remain free and equal in rights. By appointing me as your President, you are giving this message a new significance today. I therefore want to thank all of you, elected by direct universal suffrage, who are making this strong gesture. »
The phrase. José Gonzalez, RN deputy and dean of the Hemicycle
“Excuse me, I’m thinking of my friends left over there…”
Suddenly, José Gonzalez stops. “Excuse me, I’m thinking of my friends left over there…” Emotion strangles the deputy National Rally (RN) of Bouches-du-Rhône, at the tribune of the Palais-Bourbon, Tuesday, June 28. At 79, the dean opens the inaugural session of the 16e legislature by bringing a scent of nostalgia for French Algeria and the returnees of 1962 over the hemicycle. A time that the four youngest deputies designated as session secretaries cannot know. “I left a part of my France there. I am a man who has seen his soul forever bruised by the feeling of abandonment”insists the pied-noir born in Oran, who says to himself “snatched from [sa] native land by the wind of history”. A majority of deputies applaud him as a sign of encouragement.
Later, in the Salle des Quatre-Colonnes, the elected representative of Allauch insisted to the press: “Come with me to Algeria, I’ll find you a lot of Algerians who will say to you: ‘When are you coming back, the French?’ » Before adding: “I am not here to judge whether the OAS [l’Organisation de l’armée secrète] has committed crimes or not. » Something to scandalize, from the left to La République en Marche… and to touch the patriarch of the far right. Jean-Marie Le Pen telephoned him to congratulate him and invite him next week to pin the golden flame, the highest honorary title of the Lepenist party, very close to his tricolor scarf.
Read the rest of the story: José Gonzalez, the dean of the National Assembly who opened the legislature by invoking French Algeria
Ivanne Trippenbach
The portrait. Mélanie Thomin, MP Nupes “faller” of Richard Ferrand
It’s 9 p.m., Sunday, June 19. At the end of the second round of the legislative election of the 6e constituency of Finistère, the socialist Mélanie Thomin unfolds two typed sheets. In a municipal hall in Châteaulin, the activists of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) listen to him read this text prepared in case the counting of the ballot boxes of the seventy municipalities of the territory would be favorable to him. After the first round, she was a thousand votes behind Richard Ferrand, outgoing deputy (Together!, La République en Marche) and President of the National Assembly. To everyone’s surprise, the 38-year-old teacher convinced 50.86% of voters.
Mme Thomin won because she became a credible opponent during this campaign, for which she had not yet prepared. The Nupes agreement reserving the 6e constituency of Finistère in the Socialist Party propelled her to the front line of a battle that seemed unbalanced, she, the discreet French teacher, six months pregnant, then engaged in the preparation of the baccalaureate of her Quimper high school students. Thanks to her militant experience forged at the National Union of Students of France, the Movement of Young Socialists and then the Socialist Party, the municipal councilor of the village of Hanvec united socialist militants as well as the faithful of La France insoumise.
Read the rest of this portrait, by clicking here
Benjamin Keltz (Rennes, correspondence)
The day when… In 2017, the new LRM deputies had a difficult start at the law commission
Each legislature has its share of neophyte deputies, faced with learning the requirements of the making of the law. In an article from Monde dated July 23, 2017, journalist Manon Rescan thus recounts the laborious beginnings of the new law commission, chaired by a first-time elected member of the wave of “walkers”, Yaël Braun-Pivet.
Wednesday July 19, a few weeks after taking office, the latter was the author of a new quack. “Believing to speak confidentially”even though she had not cut her microphone, Mme Braun-Pivet said, about his colleagues from La République en Marche (LRM): “We have a sleeping group, which does not know how to step up, which is wallowing. »
A lawyer by training, who “has not pleaded for almost fifteen years”, the new MP for Yvelines sees her legitimacy questioned as to her election to the prestigious position she occupies. Opposition elected officials say to themselves “doubtful about its true weight in negotiations with ministries” and his knowledge of the legislative circuit.
The criticisms also relate to his work launched in committee. For the moralization law, for which she wished to be rapporteur, Ms.me Braun-Pivet a rendu “an ambiguous opinion, saying it is “emotionally” in favor of an amendment requiring legislative candidates to have a clean criminal record but expressing “legal” reservations because of the risks of unconstitutionality”. “I have never attended such disorderly commissions”then laments the socialist Olivier Dussopt – since rallied to Macronie.
All LRM deputies are not left out. In committee, the group is judged “apathetic” et ” disorganized “. “They seemed to want to rush the work, mechanically sweeping away most of the amendments other than their own, without wasting time defending their position”, writes our journalist. An attitude that earned them a reframing session behind closed doors so that this learning time does not last too long.
The agenda
Elisabeth Borne in front of parliamentarians. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne is due to deliver her general policy statement to the National Assembly on Wednesday July 6 at 3 p.m., then to the Senate the same day at 9 p.m. The holding of a vote of confidence before the parliamentarians on this occasion had not, at the time of writing this diary, yet been officially announced, just like the possibility of a reshuffle and then of a council of ministers in the coming days.
Legislative calendar. On the side of the National Assembly, the first text will be examined from July 11, with the health bill allowing the maintenance of “braking measures” facing the Covid-19 epidemic. The first sessions of questions to the government should be held, in principle, on July 12 in the lower house and on July 13 in the Senate. The bill on purchasing power will be debated at the Palais-Bourbon the following week, July 18.