The Greens file an appeal before the Council of State on the incompatibility of the functions of minister and deputy

Seventeen resigning ministers were able to vote in the Assembly as deputies during the election of the president of the National Assembly. A vote which “contravenes the spirit of the Constitution”, denounce the Ecologists.

The pressure is increasing. The Ecologists filed a priority question of constitutionality (QPC) with the Council of State on Thursday, July 25, aiming to prove that the organic law which organizes “incompatibility” between a mandate as a deputy and ministerial functions “contravenes the spirit of the Constitution.”

The Greens made this appeal after 17 ministers who resigned from the Attal government were able to vote in the Assembly as deputies, but continue to manage current affairs and issue decrees.

While LFI and the PS have already filed appeals against the vote of the minister-deputies with the Constitutional Council, which has declared itself incompetent, “We are trying to find another way” for it to decide, explained the Green MP Léa Balage, who filed the appeal. If the Council of State finds this QPC admissible, it will transmit it to the Constitutional Council.

This QPC is based on an association’s appeal for annulment of a decree called “Operational cyberdefense data”, issued by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin on July 19, when they were both MPs, concerning the automated processing of personal data.

Léa Balage recalls that article 23 of the Constitution provides that “the functions of member of the government are incompatible with the exercise of any parliamentary mandate”. But an organic law (LO153) of November 17, 1958 specifies the conditions of this incompatibility, explaining that being a minister and a deputy is not incompatible if the government resigns within one month after the start of the accumulation of the two functions.

For Léa Balage, this organic law “disregards the Constitution”. “This law organizes things when deputies become ministers, but not when ministers become deputies”she explained. And “This shows that the Fifth Republic is fragile, and that it has not planned for everything. The weaknesses of the Fifth Republic must be repaired. There is a hole in the racket in the separation of powers.”