After the slap in the face in the legislative elections, the slap in the chamber? The National Assembly is preparing to bubble again this weekend. The deputies meet this Thursday to elect their new president, before dividing up the strategic positions in the Palais-Bourbon. On Friday, they will appoint the quaestors and vice-presidents, before the heads of the committees the next day. While negotiations are going well, could the National Rally be excluded from key positions?
The left is rising to the anti-RN front
On Tuesday, the four group presidents of the New Popular Front called in a letter to their counterparts from Ensemble, Horizons, Modem and La Droite républicaine (ex-LR) to “refuse the trivialization and legitimization of the extreme right in the National Assembly”. Their request: that the parties agree during the votes to prevent the National Rally from accessing key positions in the National Assembly, in particular the two vice-presidencies that it held in the previous term.
“We told people throughout the campaign that we had to build a Republican barrier to prevent the fascists from coming to power, but we wouldn’t do it for the perch and other positions? Is this a joke?”, fumes Antoine Léaument, rebellious deputy from Essonne. “The voters who voted for the Macronists did it to block the RN’s path, not to be a stepping stone,” he adds.
RN calls for “respect” of the regulation
Among the main interested parties, Marine Le Pen was annoyed this Wednesday that her group could be deprived of prestigious positions, while it went from 89 deputies to 126 (and 143 with the elected representatives allied LR-Ciotti). “What has become of our democracy, where we try to deny the vote of nearly 11 million French people, where we try to prevent the opposition, which is the first party in France, from having responsibilities in the National Assembly?”, questioned the president of the RN group on X. Julien Odoul, RN MP for Yonne, calls for “respect” for Article 10 of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly.
The latter specifies that “the election of vice-presidents, quaestors and secretaries takes place by striving to reproduce within the Bureau the political configuration of the Assembly and to respect parity between women and men”. “Any other decision would be contrary to democracy and respect for the opposition”, adds the RN elected official.
Macronists advocate “neither-nor”
The fate of the RN could well be in the hands of the presidential camp. In June 2022, As we have seen, the National Rally had obtained two positions of vice-president of the National Assembly out of six. Sébastien Chenu and Hélène Laporte had been elected thanks to the votes of Macronist (and right-wing) elected officials, which had not failed to provoke controversy over this “normalization” of the movement. On Monday, the former Renaissance group (renamed Ensemble pour la République), chaired by Gabriel Attal, noted that its elected officials would not give any votes to RN candidates… or to those of LFI.
But this “neither-nor” strategy has not really been to the taste of the other groups of the former majority. Horizons and the Modem seem rather in favour of respecting the balance of forces in the chamber, like the elected representatives of the right. “The spirit of the institution is a proportional representation of each of the groups that constitute it”, judged the LR deputy Annie Gennevard on France Inter.
Finally, faced with the “barrier” put in place, the RN could also threaten its opponents with reprisals. Because, with its 143 elected representatives, Marine Le Pen’s party has sufficient strike force to swing the precious upcoming elections. And to act as a barrier itself.
Source: www.20minutes.fr
