Presidency of the French Assembly | Yaël Braun-Pivet re-elected in the face of a bitter left

(Paris) Yaël Braun-Pivet is back on her perch: eleven days after the legislative elections, the outgoing president of the Assembly was re-elected thanks to an agreement between the right and Macron’s party, which perhaps lays the foundations for a government coalition and highlights the wall that the left is coming up against at the Palais Bourbon.

At the end of a “historic” and suspenseful day, which saw more than 500 journalists flock to the Palais Bourbon, Mr.^me Braun-Pivet was elected in the third round with 220 votes against the left-wing candidate André Chassaigne (PCF), 207 votes. Sébastien Chenu (RN) almost won all the votes for his camp with 141 votes.

Faced with an “Assembly more divided than ever,” Mr.^me Braun-Pivet stressed from the podium the need for deputies to “seek compromises”, to be “able to dialogue, to listen to each other and to move forward”. “This election perhaps obliges me more than ever, more than that of 2022”, she said.

The Yvelines MP took advantage of the transfer of votes from Horizons candidate Naïma Moutchou, and especially from the support of La Droite républicaine, which withdrew its candidate Philippe Juvin.

Between the second and third rounds, the left held its breath, regaining hope after the withdrawal of Liot’s candidate Charles de Courson, which could have benefited it – in vain.

Speaking to the press, Mr Chassaigne virulently denounced a vote “stolen” by an “unnatural alliance” between Macron’s party and the right, while the left came out on top in the second round of the legislative elections.

“Democratic denial”

“At the cost of a secret agreement with LR, the counterparts of which we will discover, of circumventing the constitution by having 17 ministers vote, the candidate of the Élysée finds the perch after 3 successive defeats in the European and legislative elections. The height of democratic denial”, castigated on X the first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure, whose camp promises an appeal before the Constitutional Council.

Sébastien Chenu denounced a “victory of schemes”. “The Republicans, who got themselves elected 15 days ago by saying that they were the opposition to Emmanuel Macron, have just voted for Yaël Braun-Pivet”, he denounced.

But^me Braun-Pivet will ensure “the expression of diversity of sensibilities”, assured Emmanuel Macron on X.

After the defeat of the presidential camp, which came second in the evening of the second round of the legislative elections, the Yvelines MP pulled off an unexpected coup, thanks to the support of a right that was itself weakened.

The Palais Bourbon has been buzzing for several days with rumors of an agreement between Macron’s party and the right, which, according to concordant sources, negotiated several key positions in the Assembly as the price of its support: at a minimum, a vice-presidency, the head of the finance committee, and one of the three quaestor positions.

On the sidelines of the vote, several hundred people gathered at Place de la République in Paris, at the call of the CGT, “to put the National Assembly under surveillance” and demand “respect” for the election results.

But the New Popular Front came up against “everyone except the left” on all sides, according to a Macronist source.

Is the agreement between the right and Macron’s party the embryo of a coalition? The right denies being in this logic, but assumes according to its spokesperson Vincent Jeanbrun to want to “make win [ses] ideas”, set out in a “legislative pact” that she is proposing to Macron’s party.

“Bingo” for Wauquiez

“If we get positions of responsibility without being [dans] “The executive is a bit of a bingo for us. Our line is not to participate in a government,” assured a close friend of Laurent Wauquiez on Thursday morning.

Bogged down since July 7 in discussions to agree on the name of a common candidate for Matignon, the left sees the prospect of accessing power fading away, at least in the immediate future.

The president of the PS group, Boris Vallaud, however promised on Thursday evening that she would come up with “a name very quickly”.

Earlier in the day, Olivier Faure had called on the NFP troops to organize a vote between two personalities: Huguette Bello, president of La Réunion, who is opposed by the PS, and Laurence Tubiana, architect of the Paris climate agreement who is not favored by LFI.

In an interview with AFP, the latter said she was ready to become prime minister, determined to “snatch” left-wing measures to respond to the “social emergency”.

On Friday, discussions will resume to allocate the other key positions in the Assembly, members of the bureau and committee chairs.

In recent days, the NFP has returned to the charge to call for depriving the extreme right of all these key functions. Marine Le Pen’s group, which until now had two vice-presidencies, is already crying foul about the denial of democracy.

If the group chaired by Gabriel Attal claims not to want to vote for either an RN candidate or an LFI candidate, the MoDem and Horizons are in favour of a distribution of posts proportional to the weight of each group.

Just like Yaël Braun-Pivet who recalled after her election that she found it “healthy” that “each political group, whatever it may be, can be represented in the Bureau” of the Assembly.