Yaël Braun-Pivet has unsurprisingly become the new President of the National Assembly. She is the first woman to hold this position. After a controversial speech by the Dean of the Assembly José Gonzalez (RN), the deputies had to do it twice to appoint the one who will arbitrate the parliamentary debates from the perch.
It would have taken twice. Shortly before 7 p.m., Yaël Braun-Pivet became the first woman to become President of the National Assembly. The applause was generous in the hemicycle when the favorite was officially able to access the Perchoir. From the beginning of the afternoon, the deputies went to vote one after the other as tradition dictates. For the start of this 16th legislature, a relaxed atmosphere reigned under the Parisian sun. Little by little the Assembly filled up with its new political colours.
First tensions with the speech of the Dean of the Assembly. National Rally deputy José Gonzalez, 79, insisted in his speech on his journey around French Algeria. “I left part of my France and a lot of friends there. I am a man who has seen his soul bruised forever…” He breaks off because of the emotion and resumes his sentence: “By the feeling of abandonment and the periods of heartbreak”. The deputy of Bouches-du-Rhône thus drew the wrath of the NUPES deputies, who were quick to tweet their dissatisfaction with what the RN deputy was inflicting on them.
A vote like the National Assembly
At the end of the first vote where 562 deputies out of the 577 elected spoke, the candidate Together Yaël Braun-Pivet was logically leading the race. He will have missed 44 deputies to collect the absolute majority of the votes. The rest of the votes will have varied: 146 deputies voted in favor of Fatiha Keloua-Hachi, the NUPES candidate. This is 15 deputies more than the number of elected under the colors of this alliance. An overrun which can be explained by the vote of the Various left deputies, visibly more sensitive to the current of the LFI-PS-EELV-PCF alliance than to the presidential majority. At the time of the announcement of the score of the National Rally candidate Sébastien Chenu, Marine Le Pen displayed a big smile of satisfaction in the hemicycle. The far-right representative collected 90 votes. This is one more than the total number of RN deputies. The former president of the party, now president of her parliamentary group, shows a more united base than ever. Annie Genevard (LR) and Nathalie Bassire (LIOT) are in last position with 61 and 18 votes respectively.
Without an absolute majority, the Assembly had to vote again, further lengthening the waiting time to know the name of the President of the Assembly. On the second ballot, the candidates were the same except Sébastien Chenu (RN). He is the only one who did not maintain his candidacy. This withdrawal leads to the abstention of the RN deputies and therefore, an absolute majority revised downwards which allowed Yaël Braun-Pivet to be elected president during this 2nd round. With 242 votes in her favor out of 462 voters, the deputy for the 5th constituency of Yvelines reached the Perchoir, taking over from Richard Ferrand during the previous term of office. At the exit, the deputies were not all convinced by the profile of the new president of the Assembly. “She is the one who stopped the commission of inquiry into the Benalla affair when she was president of the law commission”, recalled Clémence Guetté (FI).
Regarding NUPES, some splits continue to be felt. Sandrine Rousseau said she “regrets” that environmentalists find themselves “with nothing”. The candidate for Le Perchoir, Fatiha Keloua-Hachi, came from the PS and the deputy candidate for the presidency of the finance committee is Eric Coquerel, from the ranks of rebellious France.