The Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, assured this Wednesday, April 2, that there was neither “assault”, nor “insults”, nor “threats” during an incident the previous evening with an official of the National Assembly, but the debates planned with the deputies could not resume.
“I saw press releases” saying “that there had been an assault, that there were threats, that there were insults. They never existed,” hammered Rachida Dati when resuming the examination of the public audiovisual reform project in the assembly in the assembly. He turned short, a suspension of the work having taken place immediately after his words. They could resume at 6.30pm, we learned from parliamentary sources.
The examination of this text had already been suspended the previous evening, after what left -wing deputies denounced as an “serious” incident between Rachida Dati and an administrator of the Assembly. On Wednesday, the minister recognized “lively debates” between members of her ministry and the official. According to her, the discussion concerned the refusal to accept an amendment that the ministry wanted to deposit in response to the “obstruction amendments” of the opponents of the text. “I wondered and questioned the administrator to say why this amendment was not granted,” said Rachida Dati. “There was a slightly lively response, we explained it and the incident was closed,” she continued. “I do not want this commission to be instrumentalized for other reasons of obstruction or politician,” she insisted, before the session is again suspended.
“Serious facts”, according to the opposition
Previously, in an introductory remarks, the president of the commission, Fatiha Keloua Hachi (PS), had hoped that Rachida Dati “apologizes”, pointing “serious facts”.
In front of the press, the environmentalist Sophie Taillé-Pollian estimated during the new suspension on Wednesday that “the conditions (of continuation of the debates) seem difficult to bring together in the presence of Rachida Dati”. “We are awaiting a government response to find out if another minister can defend the text,” she said.
In a letter Wednesday to the Minister of Relations with Parliament, the president of the ecological group Cyrielle Chatelain asked for the postponement of discussions on the bill, deploring “unacceptable examination conditions”, between the incident with the Minister, the last -minute amendments and the lack of impact impact study.
Worn by Rachida Dati, the reform of public audiovisual plans to create a holding company, France Médias, which would oversee France Télévisions, Radio France and the INA (National Institute of Audiovisual), under the authority of a president. A share of employees in the sector, Radio France and France Télévisions in the lead, went on strike on Monday and Tuesday against the project.