Jean-Michel Jacques, re-elected MP for the sixth constituency of Morbihan, is the new president of the National Defense and Armed Forces Committee of the National Assembly. A former Navy commando, this MP is counting on the crew spirit of the Assembly to preserve the 413 billion euro budget of the recently voted military programming law, for which he was the rapporteur. Portrait of an MP with an atypical profile.
At the Palais Bourbon, it is said that it is the most beautiful office of the National Assembly. On the wall, a huge canvas representing a naval battle and on a console, a green beret of Marine commando, registration number 7480, Jean-Michel Jacques welcomes us there.
“When you arrive here, it’s really impressive, because we have an office with old furniture and also old moldings and it’s one of the most beautiful in the National Assembly. At one point, the administration was tempted, to save space, to cut it in two, but the historical service decided otherwise. They did the right thing, which allowed it to retain all its splendor. And on a dresser, I put my Marine commando beret. This beret that has never left me since I got it from one of my elders and that will follow me everywhere. So, it followed me to my office as mayor. It followed me to my office as deputy. For me, it’s a lot of things and if I get lost or if there’s anything, I just have to look at it and everything gets back on track. »
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The Flame of Resistance
Nothing predestined him to enter the Palais Bourbon, Jean-Michel Jacques, 56 years old, was born in Moselle, in the Fensch valley. It is a steel and mining valley and in fact, I had a grandfather who was Italian, who came to work in the coal mines at a very young age, and then another grandfather who worked in the steel factories, a grandfather who had been a member of the Resistance and deported to the concentration camp at Struthof and the Dachau concentration camp. This grandfather who had been a member of the Resistance and had been deported, during family meals, would tell what he had experienced. At a very young age, I became aware of what man can be, the best and the worst. And very quickly, I had this need to commit myself to my country to avoid, perhaps, our country being mistreated again as I had heard through my grandfather’s stories. And so that led me at the age of 18, without telling my parents, to go through the doors of the Ney barracks recruiting office in Metz, to enlist. »
To spice up his life, he smiles, it will be the Navy: “And it was the Navy because at that time, I had trained as a carpenter and I said to myself, I’m going to be a Navy carpenter to go to sea, to travel! Very quickly, they told me, Navy carpenter, that’s not possible, you have to choose something else. So, I chose to be a Navy commando because quite simply, when I entered this recruitment office I had seen a poster with a man throwing himself out of a helicopter over the desert. I found it extraordinary and so I said to myself: I’m going to do that and so I signed up like that! And off I went for training as a Navy commando rifleman, and I went to join the Navy commandos in Lorient.”
The Afghan experience
A rifleman in the Jaubert Commando, then in the Closed Combat Intervention Group, he finally joined the Trépel commando, with experience of the war in Afghanistan: “Indeed, it was a difficult terrain where death was continually and potentially there. In any case, it is a sequence of my life that I will never forget. Moments of camaraderie, but also moments of sorrow when one has the sad honor, as I had, of carrying the coffin of one’s brother in arms in the Cour des Invalides. »
A single compass
After 24 years in the Navy, Jean-Michel Jacques continued his commitment to politics this time: first as mayor of Brandérion, a small town near Lorient, then as deputy of Morbihan, elected three times under the colors of the presidential majority. At the head of the National Defense and Armed Forces Committee, he advocated for the establishment in the National Assembly of the crew spirit acquired during his years in the Navy, “The ambition is already to ensure that the military programming law is carried out in its entirety and as it was voted. And so this will require ensuring that the budget allocated to our armed forces is preserved, this is not a luxury. We have war at the gates of Europe, we have international law that is flouted. We see it through the Russian aggression in Ukraine. We must keep only one compass, it is the higher interest of the nation. And the higher interest of the nation will come through a solid defense. And there, I have no doubt that my fellow MPs from all sides will always keep this in mind and ensure that, despite perhaps heated debates within the Defense Committee, we will maintain this team spirit in the interest of our country and our military.”
This claimed method: consultation and a sense of community will be valuable in a particularly fragmented hemicycle.