Alexis Delafontaine, edited by Julien Moreau with AFP
modified to
8:04 p.m., February 10, 2023
The Friday refusal of the Insoumis Thomas Portes to apologize for a tweet against the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt interrupted the examination of the pension reform, pending a possible sanction from the deputy. The session in the Assembly was suspended until the office of the institution, its highest collegiate body, decides. It was brought together by the President of the Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet, because of the “tumult” in the hemicycle around this controversial tweet.
For the left, Thomas Portes did nothing wrong
Thomas Portes was summoned before this body. The Macronists want a symbolic sanction while the left believes that Thomas Portes has done nothing wrong. The Insoumis, girded with his tricolor scarf, staged Thursday on the social network, his foot resting on a ball bearing the image of the Minister of Labor. As Thomas Portes began to defend an amendment in the hemicycle on Friday, the presidential majority covered his remarks with boos. “Calm down colleagues, there is no ball here,” the MP told them.
“Do not be surprised, dear colleague”, Yaël Braun-Pivet then told him. “I believe that the Chamber is asking you to apologize,” she added, to the applause of the majority, the right and the far right. Demanding “impartiality” from the perch holder, the boss of the LFI group Mathilde Panot asked for a suspension of the session. On resumption, the reminders of the rules were linked. “We demand an apology from you. We will never let anything pass,” said the leader of the Renaissance group Aurore Bergé. “We are not on the head-cutting side”, also declared Jean-Louis Thiériot (LR).
Raquel Garrido accuses the majority of filibustering
On the other side, Raquel Garrido (LFI) accused the majority of “obstructing” and “obstructing the right of amendment” of an elected official. Thomas Portes still could not defend his amendment, and a second break was ordered by the president. “I will withdraw my tweet the day you withdraw your reform which will sacrifice thousands of people”, then said Thomas Portes. Then, Thomas Portes confided to his colleagues from Nupes: “I will never crush myself in front of the bourgeois”, speaking of the macronists.
“It is neither more nor less a call to murder”, launched Eric Woerth (Renaissance), about the tweet of the elected LFI. “You can hate what we want to do, but we are not hateful. No proper name deserves to be smeared, no face even symbolically deserves to be trampled under foot”, tried to calm Frédéric Descrozaille, elected Renaissance .
The member faces a sanction
Yaël Braun-Pivet then announced the convocation of the office of the Assembly “in the face of the absence of an apology from Thomas Portes which clearly causes an uproar”. Mathilde Panot said she was in favor of it so that “we can continue on the pension reform”. Illustrating the tactical differences within the left, the ecologist Eva Sas then estimated in front of the press that “Thomas Portes’ tweet was inappropriate and that we must return to the debates on the merits in the hemicycle”.
“We believe at least that there should be regret in relation to what is happening and in relation to the tweet that was made”, added his colleague EELV Sabrina Sebaihi. A Member incurs four types of “disciplinary penalties” for his behavior within the precincts of the hemicycle: simple call to order, call to order with entry in the minutes, censorship, or censorship with temporary exclusion, which is the heaviest penalty. For the two most severe penalties, the decision must be approved by a vote of the Assembly.
Friday, at the end of the day, the National Assembly decided and decided to exclude Thomas Portes for a period of 15 days.