The President of the National Assembly is at the head of a chamber that is more fragmented than ever. And Yaël Braun-Pivet judged, on Saturday July 20, “not normal” that the National Rally had been excluded from the Bureau of the Assembly. “The voice of the RN will be heard in the bodies of the National Assembly,” declared on France 2 the one who returned to her perch this week, narrowly re-elected against the NFP candidate André Chassaigne. She also recalled that Marine Le Pen would sit on the conference of presidents that sets the agenda of the Assembly.
“I have always advocated for all political forces to be represented in the Bureau,” the body responsible for the internal organization of the chamber’s work, she added. This figure of Macronie regretted that “the group presidents, notably those of the New Popular Front, refused an agreement for the distribution of posts” in the Bureau, forcing a vote to be taken.
While the RN is the largest group in the new Assembly (126 deputies), the political party appears to be the big loser in a long series of elections. Unlike in 2022, when it obtained two vice-presidencies of the Assembly, the RN has this time been kept away from key positions by the other parties and will not sit on the Bureau of the lower house: none of the six vice-presidencies, no quaestor position out of the three at stake, not even one secretary out of 12.
No key position for the RN
The leader of the RN deputies, Marine Le Pen, protested on Saturday July 20 in an interview with Parisian, believing that the National Assembly had “become a lawless zone” after the distribution of these key positions within the chamber. The day before, it was Laurent Jacobelli, spokesperson for the RN, who spoke of a “denial of democracy”.
Concerns about this lack of representation of the RN in the bodies of the Assembly have found an echo among some deputies of other groups. “The main party, which represents about a third of the electorate, nearly 11 million votes cast, is not represented in the organizations responsible for running Parliament. This poses a problem,” judged Laurent Marcangeli, the president of the Horizons group (close to the former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe).
For her part, Yaël Braun-Pivet also questioned the strategy of the RN, which sabotaged itself in these votes by deliberately electing LFI vice-presidents. She called on the different political forces to “exchange quickly” to build “an action pact” for the French. “It is urgent to discuss among ourselves to reach an agreement, a blocked Assembly is not possible,” she argued.
As for the choice of Prime Minister, Yaël Braun-Pivet considered that Emmanuel Macron had “no reason” to appoint a representative of the New Popular Front because it was first necessary, according to her, to “constitute a majority”. Yaël Braun-Pivet was herself re-elected President of the Assembly thanks to a pact on the distribution of posts between the presidential camp, from which she comes, and the Republican Right group (ex-LR).