President of the National Assembly’s law commission during the previous five-year term, Yaël Braun-Pivet, 51, has been appointed overseas minister, where she succeeds Sébastien Lecornu. A sensitive position when you measure the stakes of the ultramarine vote and that in the presidential election of April this was mainly carried, in the first round, on Jean-Luc Mélenchon and, in the second round, on Marine Le Pen.
This lawyer, fresh member of La République en Marche in 2016 after having been a fellow traveler of the Socialist Party in the early 2000s, did not fail to suffer the attacks of her former “comrades” when she presented herself, and was elected to the presidency of the law commission. She combined the “handicaps” of being a woman, blonde, politically inexperienced… Everything to attract malicious press echoes.
And yet, in five years, she was able to overcome these prejudices to establish herself as president of the law commission, until seeing her mission renewed at mid-term. He is credited with great ambitions. His name has even been mentioned for the presidency of the National Assembly. The post of Minister of Overseas is certainly less prestigious, in the protocol order, but it nevertheless consecrates a rise which will not have been without obstacles for this mother of five children.
Major file
At the presidency of the law commission of the National Assembly, she imposed herself, without outbursts of voice or tumult and, today, few are those who challenge her in her function. The most difficult episode to overcome will probably have been the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the “Benalla affair”, in the summer of 2018, which it will prematurely end, in a politically delicate period.
A good soldier and loyal to her majority, Yaël Braun-Pivet was also involved, like few presidents of the Assembly’s law commission before her, in the overseas affairs file. In particular in New Caledonia, which will be one of the major issues to be dealt with after the third referendum on the territory’s independence, which was held on December 12, 2021, gave a large majority in favor of no but in favor of absence of supporters of independence, who had called not to take part in the election.
For Yaël Braun-Pivet, the file of New Caledonia, where she went several times, is essential on top of the pile. But the stack is high. The issue of the overseas territories, as the presidential election has shown, is a daily and primordial political, social and ecological reality. The task that awaits Yaël Braun-Pivet is heavy, hoping that Emmanuel Macron has himself taken the measure of the challenges to be met and the investments that this implies, because the overseas territories are the first hillocks of the ecological transition.