Following the general elections in France, people went to the polls yesterday to elect the speaker of the National Assembly. The experience of the youngest member of the Assembly, far-right MP Flavien Termet, left his mark on the election.
THEY LEFT HIS HANDS IN THE AIR
Vote One by one, the representatives entered the hall to put their ballot papers into the ballot box. At that moment, 22-year-old Rassemblement National MP Flavien Termet stood at the ballot box. Termet extended his hand to everyone to shake hands. However, many of the elected representatives left Termet’s hand in the air.
HE MADE ‘ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS’ AND SHARED IT ON SOCIAL MEDIA
LFI-NFP MP François Piquemal chose to play “rock-paper-scissors” with Termet. Termet’s discomfort with this move was reflected on his face. François Piquemal shared the video of this moment on his X account and said, “As in the game of rock-paper-scissors, the NFP won at the ballot box.”
ONLY THEY SHAKED HAND
Former Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne did not pass by without shaking Termet’s outstretched hand. Similarly, Rassemblement National leader Marine Le Pen and her members also chose to shake Termet’s hand.
BRAUN-PIVET ELECTED AGAIN AS NATIONAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT
On the other hand, following the early general elections held in France by President Emmanuel Macron’s decision, the candidate of the Macron alliance and former National Assembly President Yael Braun-Pivet, who was described as the loser of the election, was re-elected to the same position.
Among the names competing for the speakership in the session held at 15:00 local time were the candidate of Macron’s newly named “Together for the Republic” party, former Speaker of the Parliament Braun-Pivet; the candidate of the New Popular Front alliance formed by four leftist parties, Andre Chassaigne; the candidate of the Republican Party (LR), Philippe Juvin; the candidate of the Centrist Party, Charles de Courson; the candidate of the far-right National Unity Party (RN), Sebastien Chenu; and the candidate of the Movement for Democracy (MoDem) and Horizons parties, Naima Moutchou.
Chassaigne came first with 200 votes, but since an absolute majority was not achieved, a second round of voting was started, with Chassaigne, Chenu, Braun-Pivet and Courson competing. Moutchou and Juvin withdrew from the second round race.
The winner of the second round of voting was the ruling group’s candidate Braun-Pivet, who received 210 of the votes in the ballot box, while Chassaigne came in second with 202 votes and Chenu came in third with 143 votes.
Since the absolute majority could not be achieved this time, a third round of voting was held in which the President would be determined by a relative majority. Courson, who came in fourth with 12 votes, withdrew from the race.
As a result of the third vote between Braun-Pivet, Chassaigne and Chenu, Braun-Pivet became the president of the National Assembly with 220 votes.
Chassaigne came in second with 207 votes, while Chenu finished third with 141 votes.
The vice presidents are expected to be appointed on July 19.
WHAT HAPPENED?
Following the defeat of the ruling party, formerly known as the “Renaissance”, in the European Parliament (EP) elections on June 6-9, Macron dissolved the National Assembly on June 9, sending the country into early elections. In the general elections held in less than a month, 577 new candidates for five years were elected, but no party or alliance was able to reach the 289 seats required to form an absolute majority in the Parliament.
In the early general elections, the New People’s Front won 178 seats, while Macron’s alliance won 163 and the far-right RN alliance won 143 seats, with the ruling party losing around 90 seats compared to the 2022 general elections.