A week after the second round of the legislative elections, which reshuffled the cards of the French political landscape, the coming days promise to be intense in the National Assembly. From Tuesday, June 28, opens at the Palais-Bourbon a week of votes for the allocation of key positions in the institution.
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The Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, confirmed in her post on Saturday by Emmanuel Macron, will continue her discussions with the parliamentary groups in parallel in order to form a “action government” for “beginning of July”, according to the words of the Head of State. Here is what awaits the deputies.
Tuesday: the allocation of the presidency of the Assembly…
For the first time in France, a woman should access the perch. Yaël Braun-Pivet, who had been overseas minister for a month, left the government this weekend with a view to this deadline. Still a novice in politics in 2017, the former president of the Assembly’s law commission, re-elected deputy for Yvelines, was invested on Wednesday by the presidential majority and should thus succeed Richard Ferrand (LREM), a (very) close to Emmanuel Macron defeated in the second round of legislative elections.
All the deputies, gathered in alphabetical order from 3 p.m. for the first time in the hemicycle, in order to launch the 16th legislature, will vote in a secret ballot at the podium. In front of Yael Braun-Pivet, se also present Annie Genevard (LR), ex-vice-president LR of the Assembly, the elected RN Sébastien Chenu and certainly a candidate for the union of the left.
If the absolute majority of the votes cast has not been obtained in the first two rounds of voting, the relative majority is sufficient in the third round, which should guarantee, unless surprised, the election of Yaël Braun-Pivet.
… and the publication of the list of political groups
Before 6 p.m., the groups must submit their political statements to the President of the Assembly, together with the list of their members and related deputies. The political groups can, if necessary, declare themselves to be in opposition. The list will be published on Wednesday in the Official Journal.
The deadline is important because it will make it possible to establish the balance of power in the new Assembly. The majority has 252 deputies, said the head of government on Thursday. It therefore lacks 37 elected members to reach an absolute majority. Since then, the phones have been heating up on the moderate right and left sides.
At this stage, we are moving towards ten parliamentary groups, i.e. the record already reached in 2000: three majority groups (LREM renamed Renaissance, MoDem and Horizons), four on the left (LFI, PS, PCF, ecologists), the LR and RN groups, and probably the UTiles. This last group, made up in particular of deputies from overseas, intends to be “independent” and rather in “propositional opposition”.
Wednesday : the appointment of the members of the office of the National Assembly
New session Wednesday at 3 p.m.: will be appointed, possibly by ballot if there is a plurality of candidates, the members of the office of the National Assembly, a sort of board of directors of the institution.
These are first and foremost the six vice-presidents of the Assembly, who in turn, together with the President of the Assembly, chair the meetings. The three quaestors (two from the majority, one from the opposition) will also be appointed. Directly inspired by the Roman quaestors, they hold the purse strings of the institution. Also at stake are twelve secretarial positions.
The bureau governs the functioning of the National Assembly and can also decide to waive the immunity of a deputy. It must reflect the composition of the Assembly.
Thursday: election of committee directors, including that of finance
From 10:30 a.m., the fight will take place in the eight permanent committees of the Assembly (laws, economic affairs, social affairs, etc.) for the election of their leadership. The LREM group is preparing for it on Monday with a series of internal votes.
The spotlight will be on the Finance Committee, whose chairman must be a member of the opposition. Traditionally, the majority does not participate in the vote for this commission, leaving the oppositions to organize themselves. Some macronists, however, reserve the possibility of deciding between the RN and the left, who claim to preside over this commission, with respectively Jean-Philippe Tanguy, former deputy director of the presidential campaign of Marine Le Pen, and Eric Coquerel (LFI) or Valérie Rabault (PS) for Nupes.
To avoid fractures within the left-wing coalition, the latter suggested a rotating presidency… on the left.