The National Assembly is not just a metro station. It’s a shame because for a long time it was one of the most beautiful in Paris, thanks to the ephemeral works by Jean-Charles Blais stuck along its walls between 1990 and 2014. That is, between the time I learned to write and the time I messed up my tax return for the first time. That’s how long a period it was. But I digress.
The National Assembly, just like the Senate, also on the left bank of Paris, are what we call chambers. And, spoiler, there is one chamber where you eat better than the other. I’ll let you take a tour of Gérard Larcher to guess which one. (No, it’s not bodyshaming when we talk about the weight of someone who literally eats our taxes.)
Anyway, I’m digressing a bit again, we’ll talk about the Senate and the cardiovascular risks of a diet that’s too rich another day. Besides, in the National Assembly, until recently, we preferred lobster instead and, unless you dip them all in mayonnaise, shellfish aren’t exactly the kind that produce love handles or clog arteries. Of the heart or power.
In short, the Assembly, or Palais Bourbon for those who like kings, whisky or vanilla, is a hemicycle full of gilding and moldings, where 577 deputies from all political sides vote on laws. For that to happen, an absolute majority must prevail, that is to say for those who, like me, have studied literature, half plus one. And when they vote against, in general, it doesn’t come out to half plus one, it comes out to 49.3. Weird arithmetic.
There has been an Assembly for a long time, like so long that at the time there were no political marketing communication companies. The proof, if we talk about the left and the right, is that at the beginning, we had people sit on the left of the chamber and they became left-wing people. Not leftists, mind you, left-wing people. Yes, yes, it already existed at the time and it still continues. And, you guessed it, in the same energy, those who sat on the right of the room in a semicircle became right-wing people.
Of course, at the time, we didn’t have any civil engineers either, and now we know that we would have had to knock down two or three load-bearing walls to create an extension far enough and long enough to seat the 126 deputies of the National Rally. And also provide a folding seat or chair for Éric Ciotti, because as we know him, he is capable in the coming months or years of going to put his ass down in another row. Where the wind takes him. That is to say, pretty much anywhere.
No, the real question I’m asking is why Netflix, which was behind one of the biggest political fiction productions, namely House of Cards (not Marseilleeh), never considered buying the exploitation rights to live recordings of sessions at the National Assembly to make a suspense series.
Maybe because there is no suspense in fact. Ask to its president if you have any doubt.
Come on, bring on Monday.
Source: www.slate.fr
