It is not only the National Assembly, which did not like the tweet of the deputy (LFI) Thomas Portes, elected on the 3rd district of Seine-Saint-Denis. Since his ousting this Friday for 15 days from the benches of the Palais Bourbon, reactions have multiplied in his constituency to denounce the attitude of the elected official. Thursday, the thirties had shocked part of the political class by posting a photo of him on the social network Twitter. We saw him in the street with his tricolor scarf, his foot resting on a football on which appeared the face of the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt.
“Minister Olivier Dussopt, withdraw your pension reform,” he wrote in the caption. A cliché which earned him to be excluded for 15 days from the National Assembly in the same way as the RN deputy, Grégoire de Fournas, who had shouted within the Palais Bourbon “Let him return to Africa! “, while one of his black colleagues had the floor.
“Since his election in June 2022, Thomas Portes has continued to make a fool of himself, reacted Christian Demuynck, the mayor (LR) of Neuilly-Plaisance in a press release published Friday evening. With his polemical positions, the deputy of Nupes does not honor his mandate (…) The National Assembly is not a circus and the wearing of the tricolor scarf requires dignity and seriousness. »
“How can you not agree with my colleague Christian Demuynck in the face of the unworthy and abject behavior of this deputy NUPES?, for her part, tweeted the mayor of Noisy-le-Grand, Brigitte Marsigny (LR). Our riding deserves better. »
In Noisy-le-Grand, the elected representatives of the opposition also took up the pen on Friday to denounce the attitude of the deputy, regretting “an inadmissible and macabre staging on social networks” “Verbal and symbolic violence can in no way have its place to allow a credible debate”, write the elected officials in a press release signed by the PS, EELV and Génération.s.
“A tweet that was not a call to hate”
The parliamentarian, for his part, assumed his words, this Saturday, in front of the cameras of BFMTV. “I don’t have to apologize for a tweet that wasn’t a call to hate,” he insisted, adding that the majority was “seeking to stifle debate.” “It is a disproportionate sanction (…), political, which aims to prevent a vote by a deputy against the pension reform in the Hemicycle”, he castigated.
Thomas Portes also obtained the support of several parliamentarians from Seine-Saint-Denis, including MP Raquel Garrido (LFI) who estimated on Twitter that his ouster was “an abuse of power by the macronists”.