The habitus distinguishes them to the point of caricature. If the Insoumis Eric Coquerel, who passed through Trotskyism, greets the microphone with a very contemporary “hello to all”, the centrist Charles de Courson (Liot) declines the protocolary litany of “Ladies and Gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen deputies…”. If Eric Coquerel is tousled with a swirl of gray locks, Charles de Courson presents the impeccable parting befitting the Marne squire. Appearances, however, are misleading; we must observe them, sitting side by side, on October 21, in the second basement of the National Assembly, the president of the Finance Committee Coquerel, shirt collar open, rubbing his eyes, touching his nose, looking his cell phone when the general budget rapporteur in a tie, navy jacket, fabric handkerchief, hands raised, stands hieratic, and suddenly, Coquerel placing a hand on Courson’s shoulder, Coquerel whispering a word in Courson’s ear, Courson moving the chair aside for Coquerel, Courson serving water to Coquerel. Fluid tango.
That morning, a few hours before the examination in public session of the “revenue” part of the finance bill, which is shaking the government and making Macronie bristle, the inseparable people took the initiative of putting it on the table the pensions issue, at the heart of the program of the New Popular Front. Suddenly, they invited a host of economists and trade unionists, each presenting alternatives to financing the system. The aim is to demonstrate – with many curves and figures – that it is possible to return to the legal age set at 62 without increasing the abysmal abyss in public finances. The date is chosen: two bills, requesting the repeal of the 2023 reform, arrive in Parliament. That of the National Rally on October 31, that of LFI, on November 28. Eric Coquerel also specifies that the initiative was suggested to him by Sophie Binet of the CGT, to whom he pays tribute, while his friend Charles de Courson, who participated in the drafting of Valérie Pécresse’s program, called for Nicolas Sarkozy to be elected. and who, since 2013, has voted in favor of all reforms raising the legal age, listening, smiling and good-natured.
Unpublished pair, baroque carriage. Growing up on opposite sides of the political spectrum, she discovered and then united, until the staged merger, in the detestation of the Macron presidency. In the summer of 2022, Charles de Courson ran for the presidency of the powerful Finance Commission in the Assembly, then gave up to allow the very left-wing parliamentarian Eric Coquerel to be elected, supported by the Liot votes. First short pass. June 2023, the pension reform ignites the Assembly, and Charles de Courson, magistrate at the Court of Auditors, formidable expert in public finances, defends, vibrantly, a “transpartisan motion” demanding the repeal of the text. The septuagenarian, an isolated parliamentarian, then experienced a peak of popularity. Ovationed, applauded standing by the Nupes and the RN, who marvel at his sharp arrows, his precise calculations, his mastery of the regulations of the Assembly. A strong MP, capable of reading and memorizing hundreds of amendments in a few hours, a godsend. His motion failed – by nine votes – to overthrow the government. Has the austere elected official from Marne ever recovered from the narcissistic thrills of this craze, he who, for thirty years, has been plowing through the public accounts and their thankless complexity so unproductive in media outbursts until then?
Last July, he ran for the seat of the Assembly, but failed. The shivers fade, only now they are missing. Here he is back in the finance committee’s account books. The second pass of the short ladder begins. Who chairs the said commission? The three Liot votes, including those of Courson, are for Insoumis Coquerel, thus re-elected, the position returning since 2008, and a modification of article 39 of the regulations of the Assembly, to the opposition. Except that, according to parliamentary doctrine, it is planned, with the same concern for balance, that the seat of general budget rapporteur goes to the majority. Going beyond custom, Charles de Courson is running against the Macronist candidate Jean-René Cazeneuve. He is elected, carried by the support and gratitude of the Rebels.
Not friends but allies
The pair, held together by the exchange of good practices, have since given it their all, savoring their coups, concocted while passing from one office to another, both neighbors on the second floor at the Palais Bourbon ( we have never seen them together at the refreshment bar, nor even at the lunch table). They are not friends, they are allies. “Their interests converge, by serving each other, each benefits from the strength of the other,” says Renaissance MP Mathieu Lefèvre. “The unnatural alliance constitutes a tandem which lives to preserve the fruits of this union”, tackles the MP for Orne, Véronique Louwagie.
In September, the duo asked Matignon and Bercy for the ceiling letters, these budgetary framework documents addressed to the ministries. In the absence of a response – Michel Barnier has just been appointed, and the preparation of the budget is taking shape in an emergency, even in panic given the discovery of a cataclysmic deficit – here they are marching towards Bercy, then advancing towards Matignon , an orchestrated stroll under the eye of the invited cameras – Coquerel in an open parka and Courson strapped into a brown wool coat. The string – an idea of Coquerel’s in fact – is making the rounds on all television news, although neither of us is unaware that the transmission of these ceiling letters is not an obligation, and that the general rapporteur of the budget goes beyond his scope of action, these falling within the competence of the president of the committee. Never mind, the message gets across. Two swashbucklers, concerned with the defense of Parliament, two incorruptibles, devoted to the transparency of the political game.
They make tons of it, boasting together, going so far as to confide in the columns of Paris Match singing Françoise Hardy – Eric Coquerel at the top of his lungs, amazed that his accomplice knows all the words by heart. In the Finance Committee, their alliance is appreciated differently. If everyone praises their technical skills, in the LR and Renaissance ranks, the number annoys. Their speaking times not being limited by status, each one talks at length, monopolizing the clocks. The elected representatives of the “common base” have done the math: 83% of the speaking time devoured by the opposition, including 13% by Coquerel, tied with Courson, and, still according to their figures, the “common base” would not have, he was only able to express himself 8% of the time. Eleven deputies sent this count, via a letter dated October 9, to the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, asking her to respect “the plurality of debates”. They also note that the fifteen administrators, working under the orders of the president and the general rapporteur, in fact work for the opposition. On October 16, unanimously this time, the 76 deputies of the Finance Committee requested and obtained that their committee be given the powers of a commission of inquiry, in order to research and examine the causes of the budgetary slippage. . “The Assembly is in its role, provided that the commission does not turn into a political trial, anesthetizing all forms of reflection,” warns the elected representative of Val-de-Marne, Mathieu Lefèvre. Not sure that the duo at its head see it that way, determined to make the exercise a thunderous platform, electrifying the political landscape. Flammable.
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