In a stormy atmosphere, LFI, communists and environmentalists criticized the presidential majority for wanting to “criminalize the opposition” in this commission of inquiry and to “divert” the challenge against the pension reform.
The National Assembly validated Wednesday evening the creation of a commission of inquiry requested by the presidential majority on the “small groups, perpetrators of violence during demonstrations” such as those of Sainte-Soline or May 1, under the protests by LFI deputies, communists and ecologists.
This parliamentary commission of inquiry, approved by 204 votes against 47, intends to work on “the structuring, financing, means and methods of action of small groups responsible for violence” during demonstrations and gatherings “between March 16 and May 3, 2023”.
March 16 is the day of the triggering by the government of 49.3 to pass the pension reform in the Assembly without a vote, sparking mobilizations and clashes.
The chosen deadlines also aim to examine the clashes between gendarmes and opponents of megabasins, water reservoirs, on March 25 in Sainte-Soline in Deux-Sèvres.
Also concerned: the mobilization of May 1 against the pension reform, marked by violence, with 540 people arrested in France including 305 in Paris, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
RN support
In the eyes of the LFI Marianne Maximi, opposed to the text, the government bears “a heavy political responsibility for the violence”, by “the political impasse” of pensions. The left has called for a change in policing doctrine, emphasizing “mutilated” protesters.
The macronist Florent Boudié, rapporteur, explained that he was aiming in this commission of inquiry at the “small groups” which come with “firework mortars, lead ball slingshots” or “molotov cocktails”, in order “to attack the life of the forces of order”.
Socialist Roger Vicot condemned all “violence wherever it comes from, from the far right, from the far left” and “sometimes from the police”, judging this commission to be “legitimate” and “democratic”. investigation.
On the far right, the RN Julien Odoul supported the creation of the commission, but criticizes the presidential camp for not clearly mentioning the “far left militias, antifas, black blocks, anarchists, extremist ecologists” who “gangrerate the social movements for years,” he said.
Commissions of inquiry are made up of no more than thirty members, appointed proportionally from the political groups. Their work cannot exceed six months.
