What would politics be without its stunts, its low blows, its twisted blows, its dirty tricks…? Because, as Edouard Philippe would say, “we have to do things seriously without taking ourselves seriously”, the political service of L’Express offers to immerse you in the corridors of power thanks to a weekly meeting, every Thursday, on our website.
Bernard Cazeneuve contemplates with consternation the debates in the National Assembly and the speeches of the members of France insubordinate. “These are characters of modern times in the literal sense: Charlots who manufacture the National Rally on the chain”, laments the former Prime Minister. And to add: “The whole fight of the left has been to fight to restore their honor to innocent people; now they are fighting to make innocent people lose their honor”, referring to the invectives of which Olivier Dussopt was the victim.
It has not escaped anyone, the decibels have risen sharply in the precincts of the National Assembly during the debates on pensions, giving some headaches to some parliamentarians and members of the government. But it would not be only the militant passion which would raise the voices. A member of the government still keeps, a few days later, a tenacious memory of another type of disturbing element: “I was on the bench at the bottom of the spans of Nupes, I turn around, and I see deputies from the left drunk to the last degree, still talking about the rum they’d had for lunch!” Only, nothing prohibits it in the regulations of the Assembly…
The new president of the National Rally continues to send repeated messages to the executives of the Les Républicains party whom he hopes to convince to join him on his list for the Europeans in the 2024 election, Nadine Morano and François-Xavier Bellamy in the lead. After having poured out his ambitions in the press, the Lepenist leader no longer hides, including publicly. In plenary of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Tuesday, February 14, he went on the attack in the middle of the canteen of parliamentarians. “You have to join us!”, Launched Jordan Bardella to his Versailles colleague, when a member of the RN team had just saved Bellamy from tripping … in a chair. “He does not hide that there is a warm place waiting for François-Xavier”, smiles one of his relatives. Nevertheless: if the conservative philosopher officially has no intention of turning his back, these little attentions are not to displease him…
Nicolas Sarkozy, who had lunch on February 7 with Emmanuel Macron and supports an agreement between the executive and LR on pensions, continues to have reservations about Elisabeth Borne. And he hasn’t lost the meaning of the cowboy formula. “The first time I saw her, she didn’t say hello to me, told the former president to a visitor. I found that surprising, so I carried out my little investigation. In fact, she don’t say hello to anyone! So, I found that reassuring for me, more worrying for the country.”
This is the favorite activity of the moment on the right: counting the deputies who will vote or oppose the pension reform, which never ceases to fracture LR. The boss of the party Eric Ciotti himself lent himself to this game. Of the 62 members of the group, the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes counts 35 deputies ready to vote on the text. This can still change: this inventory was made before Elisabeth Borne’s latest announcements on long careers.
The National Assembly is not always the scene of invectives between deputies. It also happens that we make a few jokes there. Monday, February 13 in the evening, at the end of a day marked by heckling and after an LFI deputy accused Olivier Dussopt of “murderer”, the boss of the PS group Boris Vallaud meets Franck Riester. “It’s calmer this evening”, welcomes the Minister for Relations with Parliament – the same Riester who has not avoided the blunders about the pension reform in recent weeks, in particular by admitting that women would be ” somewhat penalised”, much to the chagrin of the government. And Boris Vallaud to let go of him, mockingly: “You should take the opportunity to talk about the pension reform!”
