“It would be a major regression”, according to Béatrice Guillemont, of the Anticor association

“For Anticor, this would be a major step backwards,” reacted on Friday August 5 on franceinfo Béatrice Guillemont, general manager of the Anticor association, doctor of law specializing in the issues of the probity of elected officials of the Republic. Renaissance MP Karl Olive announced on franceinfo that he was going to table a bill to reverse the non-cumulation of mandates voted in 2014.

Béatrice Guillemont recalls that “all the rules on probity and the fight against corruption emerged from the 1970s”. And in February 2014, a law was passed “which makes it impossible for a deputy to combine the function of local executive or mayor”.

According to Anticor, this “incompatibility rule” is one of the rules “the most effective in the fight against corruption and against conflicts of interest”. If accumulation was allowed again, this “seems to contravene”, according to the association, “to the law of October 11, 2013 for the transparency of public life which defines what is the situation of conflict of interest and which evokes a real or supposed conflict between different interests”.

If Karl Olive believes that the combination would allow elected officials to better understand “the workings of the field and therefore to be less disconnected”, Béatrice Guillemont refutes this argument, which has no “no basis”. “We are in 2022. MPs are constantly connected to social networks. They take the pulse of the national” thanks to their permanence in their constituency. These are not “not at all above ground deputies”.

The parliamentarians have in particular “functions in commissions, in local committees”, emphasizes the representative of Anticor. “They are in constant contact with local public officials, local representatives, local citizens. This argument does not seem to hold at all.”

Béatrice Guillemont adds that it is also necessary “keep in mind” that a deputy or a senator “is not a super local elected official”. “A deputy, like a senator, is a member of the legislature. He is a representative of the nation. He is there to lay down the law and not to be a super elected official.”