INFOGRAPHICS. Did the “washed out” deputies work more than during the previous legislature?

“We have sessions that started at 9 a.m. and some ended at 6 a.m. So at some point, you have to sleep a little, it’s physiological”. This cry of alarm signed Sandrine Rousseau, ecologist deputy de Paris, Wednesday August 3 on France Inter, is not isolated. After more than a month of intense, and sometimes endless, debates in the National Assembly, many parliamentarians claim to be “leached”.

But did the elected officials of the Palais-Bourbon really work more than under the previous legislature? Was the pace of the July sittings really more intense than in the past five years, as some MEPs seem to claim? Franceinfo has combed through the activity of elected officials in the hemicycle between June 27, the official start of the new legislature and Sunday August 7, the date of the summer break for all 577 deputies.

First observation: the month of July was indeed a busy month for the deputies. Freshly elected in the second round of the legislative elections, on June 19, they chained big sessions, especially in the week of July 18 to 23. During this week, parliamentary work in the hemicycle reached a high total of 59 hours. The day of July 21 was the longest, with three successive sessions: the first began at 9 a.m. in the morning and the last ended at 5:50 a.m. at night.

The following week, from July 25 to 28, was also intense with more than 30 hours of debate in the hemicycle, day and night. “Five years like this, it will not be possible. We are in a kind of wringer”, worries Laurent Jacobelli, RN deputy for Moselle, taking care to specify “that it is not a question of complaining but of making proposals so that the rest of the quinquennium does not become hell”.

But these time amplitudes, linked to the vote in July of the texts on the maintenance of a health monitoring system against Covid-19, on the protection of purchasing power or even the amending finance bill, have no does nothing exceptional. If we compare with the previous legislature, the deputies for example sat more on the benches of the Palais-Bourbon in February 2020. During the week of February 17, the debates reached the 67 hours accumulated during the vote in favor of the highly contested project pension reform law.

Similarly, if we go back at 2018, during the week of april 16, devoted to the examination of the bill for controlled immigration, the 76 hours of activity in the hemicycle were reached. A record since 2017. A figure almost equaled two months later, with more than 75 hours of cumulative sessions in the week from May 28 to June 3 as part of the vote on the Elan law for the evolution of housing, development and digital technology.

On the side of the night sessions, the same observation. No week of the parliamentary session totaled more than 5 hours of sittings worked after 1 am. The durations of the nocturnal debates were thus much shorter than those observed for example the week of July 18, 2018. The accumulation of hours of debate at night had then exceeded 8 hours for the vote on the finance bill at the end of December 2018 in response to the movement of “yellow vests”.

Figures that do not surprise Boris Vallaud, PS deputy from Landes re-elected on June 19. “There is nothing new in that. Yes, the last weeks that we have just lived have sometimes been stormy, but no more than under the previous mandate. It was tiring, too, because we were coming out of a intense electoral campaign”, entrusts the president of the group of socialist and related deputies to the National Assembly.

“Night sessions and extended readings, we have already experienced them, unfortunately, a lot before. As during the text on the pension reform in 2018. Afterwards, what is certain is that at 3 a.m. , everyone wants to go to bed.”

Boris Vallaud, PS deputy for Landes

at franceinfo

For Philippe Gosselin, LR deputy for La Manche who is entering his fifth season in the National Assembly, the summer 2022 parliamentary session is also not surprising. “Each start of a term of office is marked by the fact that the government wishes to have as many texts voted on as quickly as possible to show that it is in action. July 2018, it had been much warmer than what we have just experienced”says this regular of the hemicycle.

If the extension days during the last parliamentary session are commonplace, the attendance rate of deputies in July is, on the other hand, unprecedented. According to calculations by franceinfo, 70% of the hemicycle was filled during eight of the 13 days during which public ballots were submitted to the vote of the deputies. By way of comparison, in 2017, such a rate was only reached over four days.

This exceptional attendance rate is explained firstly by the absence of an absolute majority for the presidential camp. With only 251 parliamentarians, the presidential majority (Renaissance, MoDem and Horizons) is forced to deal with part of the opposition to find compromises on each text. The strategy of the macronists: try to grab at each meeting the seats they lack in order to hope to reach the absolute majority fixed at 289 deputies.

The latter therefore find themselves obliged to be physically present during each vote to defend the various bills presented by the government. The traditional rotations between the deputies of the majority are therefore impossible and the organizations find themselves more solicited this year. “Today, the opposition manages to be in the majority almost every 15 days. Whereas previously this only happened once or twice per legislature”confirms Olivier Rozenberg, associate professor at the Center for European Studies and Comparative Politics at Sciences-Po.

“There are many new opposition deputies who are very motivated and who are therefore very present in the session. And the majority is forced to line up.”

Olivier Rozenberg, associate professor at the Center for European Studies and Comparative Politics of Sciences-Po

at franceinfo

An unprecedented situation which is not without consequences for the presidential majority, according to Christophe Rossignol, political adviser to the group Freedoms, independents, overseas and territories (LIOT). “Until now, the Assembly acted as a sort of registration chamber. And that is no longer the case. Parliamentarians are now practically obliged to come to all votes.”, he says.

Among the newly elected ubiquitous in the hemicycle since the start of the new legislature, we find the deputies of the National Rally, 89 in number, and those of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes). Almost all of the MPs from these two powerful opposition groups have been present for every vote since the start of the new legislature. “We were elected so that our ideas are heard and represented. So yes, we will be present until the end of the mandate at each session. We are heard and it is a battle that will last”launches at franceinfo Alexis Corbière, deputy LFI-Nupes of Seine-Saint-Denis.

“The fact that we have two very important protesting opposition groups changes everything. These are elected officials who want to transform the bays into trenches. It’s a war of position, a guerrilla war: they want to create conflict. The hemicycle is become an amphitheater, a permanent AG”.

Philippe Gosselin, LR deputy for the Channel

at franceinfo

To catch their breath, the deputies, at the request of the President of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet, will not sit in the hemicycle in September. “There will be no sessions, because the objective of this time without debate is to prepare future texts in advance with the social partners and the parliamentarians and also to allow the deputies to remain in our circles so as not to appear as deputies above ground”, welcomes Thomas Rudigoz, LREM deputy for the Rhône. See you in October, then.