Twelve months ago, a new legislature, marked by the absence of an absolute majority, started at the Palais Bourbon. In the front row, in the shadow of legislative work, administrators testify to this year marked by sharp dissension inside and outside the hemicycle.
“I felt the tension in the airremembers Paul*. Just coming back from the canteen, you could see the worried faces of the deputies.” Like many of his fellow Assembly administrators, Paul will remember this Thursday, March 16, for a long time. Deputies, parliamentary collaborators, journalists, but also civil servants, all await the decision of the executive on the pension reform. At midday, the ax falls: Elisabeth Borne will draw 49.3 to have the text adopted without a vote. The deputies of the majority run through the Four Columns, their faces closed. At the podium, the voice of the Prime Minister is covered by the boos and the hubbub coming from the ranks of the Nupes but also from the RN. The left holds up placards “64 years is no” and calls for the resignation of the head of government. The hemicycle is on the verge of explosion.
“The episode of the pensions crystallized the tensions”sighs Stéphane*, another administrator of the Assembly. “A climate never seen” which, beyond this single sequence, was the daily life of the Palais Bourbon this year. In question: the absence of an absolute majority for the government, which makes each vote uncertain. If the political leaders were the first to denounce what was happening in the hemicycle, the officials of the Assembly, also in the front row, are bound by a strict duty of reserve and neutrality, and never express themselves publicly. All therefore testify in this article on condition of anonymity.
“It goes beyond the show”
A month before this famous March 16, the Palais Bourbon experienced fifteen days of ultimate tension during the examination of the pension reform, which ended without a vote in a last session marked by the songs of the LFI deputies and the tirade railed by the Minister of Labour, Olivier Dussopt. “We didn’t know how the night was going to go, if the oppositions were going to be there, we only knew that the tension was going to gradually rise.recalls Marion*, administrator. It’s not nice to be in the middle of a fight.”
“I sometimes have the feeling that MPs on opposite sides see each other as enemies and not as adversaries.”
Marion, administratorat franceinfo
“Now they insult each other during adjournments, that’s something I’ve never seen beforebook Marion. It goes beyond the show.” The report is unanimous: all the civil servants questioned evoke degraded relations between the various political groups. “Deputies sometimes have to be separated by ushers, illustrates Paul. “We feel that there is something that is no longer there… It’s respect, they don’t respect each other anymore”, Stephane abounds. A deleterious climate which, he says, “prevents you from working peacefully”, to affect the quality of legislative work. “We have the feeling that the Assembly is a little weakened on the merits compared to the work of the Senate”, Stephane continues.
Is this atmosphere so new at the Palais Bourbon? Vincent* is a veteran of the Assembly, of which he knows every nook and cranny, the different customs and traditions. It has also known several different majorities and governments. “I have known very tough sessions where the debates were extremely violent and where people insulted each other”, he relates. “But people were having a drink together at the bar, he immediately points out. There were actors playing and backstage. It disappeared.”
The political battle has interfered everywhere, even in unsuspected places. Line* was marked by this moment when a Nupes deputy challenged her with a group of visitors to get them to sign the petition aimed at dissolving the Brav-M. “It’s against all custom. I cut corners and I ducked.”
Deputies “exhausted”
Beyond this tense climate, the civil servants of the Assembly note novelties in their work, whether in committee or in the hemicycle. “Committee work is impacted by what happens in session”, explains Jacques*. MEPs often have to leave their work in committee hastily – a hearing in progress, for example – to rush into the hemicycle and vote. Without an absolute majority, every vote counts. “In terms of the agenda, it’s very complicated since the deputies have to be available to go and vote”, also says Laure*. The latter also observes the consequences of the relative majority on the physical and mental state of parliamentarians, who must be in the hemicycle, in committee and in the constituency at the same time. “They were exhausted at the time of the suspension at Christmas”she says.
Civil servants get in tune with politicians who (re)discover all the mechanics of parliament. At the heart of the sequence of retreats, in particular, with these articles of the Constitution or the rules of procedure brandished by the majority and the oppositions at regular intervals. “We are in a phase of parliamentary ingenuitylaughs Paul. The government is renovating its approach to parliamentary law to use all the tools of streamlined parliamentarism.”
“We are discovering different mechanisms. New cases are appearing, we are wondering about the precedents that have been created.”
Paul, administratorat franceinfo
And Paul to cite, for example, the delicate choice between two referendum motions to be examined, one tabled by the Nupes, the other by the RN, a case which had never occurred. Or the debate at loggerheads on the inadmissibility, under article 40 of the Constitution, of the Liot bill aimed at repealing the decline in the legal retirement age to 64 years.
Another novelty of this legislature: the atmosphere of the parliamentary niches, these days reserved for a group during which the Assembly debates various bills. “Before, these were dead days, nothing happened, with very few exceptions, and there were almost no deputies”recalls Paul. “Now, significant things are happening and it is very uncertain. I remember the LFI bill on the reintegration of unvaccinated caregivers, where there was government obstruction.” Marion also remarks that “all the niches are going badly whereas before, only consensual texts passed. There, the majority is safe from nothing.” Sometimes it is itself divided. In March, Renaissance vigorously opposed a bill from its ally Horizons aimed at restoring minimum sentences, forcing the rapporteur to withdraw her text. “Even on a niche day of the majority, it can go wrong”sighs Marion.
“Parliamentarism is revived”
Today, administrators are indirectly affected by the political situation post-pension law and pre-reshuffle. “There was a very long moment of hesitation after the pension reform. We have very little visibility on the parliamentary calendar. Getting organized is more complicated”, reports Jacques. However, he believes that “if the relative majority clearly complicates the work of the executive”, “the institutions function normally”.
“The politicians dramatize everything. Texts are examined and voted on. France has a budget. We are not in a crisis of the regime, even if we came close to it during the pension reform.”
Jacques, administratorat franceinfo
For Paul, the situation is even very interesting in terms of the rebalancing of legislative and executive powers: “Parliamentarism is revived, it is more exciting to wonder what will happen next.” But others do not share this view. “The image sent back by the National Assembly is very worrying, it weakens it”, laments Stephane. Marion, she is worried: “We wonder how we’re going to last four years like this.”
*All names have been changed.