Lhe sixteenth legislature, officially started on 22nd June, the day after the legislative elections, this time lasted until 7th August. Deputies and senators will have the right to a long summer break since the next session will not begin until… October 3. This will obviously not prevent parliamentary activity in the corridors and front offices. But there will be no special session in September this year. An innovation from the start of Emmanuel Macron’s second five-year term. In any case, it’s been a long time since we’ve seen this under the Ve Republic. We asked the oldest deputy – in parliamentary longevity – Charles de Courson, elected continuously in the fifth constituency of the Marne since 1993 (he is therefore beginning his sixth term), what he thought of it.
Point : The National Assembly is finishing its work and will not resume sitting until October 3. The traditional September extraordinary session is cancelled. This is a first in institutional practice for a long time. How do you react ?
Charles de Courson: Since I was elected deputy, almost thirty years ago, I have always known the extraordinary session of September. This innovation reflects the fears of the government, which no longer has a majority, to be constantly put in a minority. But then how are we going to do it? The extraordinary session has always served to exclude certain texts. The ordinary session, as provided for in the Constitution from the beginning of October to the end of June, is not enough for us to meet our obligations as legislators. We pass far too many laws, and our methods are archaic. Let’s start by streamlining the rules on amendments: some parliamentary groups present the same amendment four to five times to increase the number of speakers. Think that we cannot in the National Assembly vote on texts in committee, while the Senate has been doing it for years, what a waste of time! Many small texts can be adopted in committee, without the need for a solemn vote in the hemicycle. The abolition of the extraordinary session will further densify the ordinary session. Is that the change of method that we were promised? If we really want to progress in this area, we must create the conditions for discussion and dialogue. It is not by shortening parliamentary time that we will be able to do this.
What conclusions do you draw from this beginning of your mandate?
Before, the National Assembly had a primitive, even primary functioning; this is what I called “the parliament of oxen.” Fortunately, all that is over! The Assembly is no longer a recording chamber. This is what the French want. The Macronist Renaissance group, like Aurore Bergé, continues to have dominating behavior even though there are only 140 of them, but hey… I also noticed, during this session, a problem of consultation between the three groups of the former majority. See the virulent remarks of Bruno Le Maire against the Horizons group: we feel that with Édouard Philippe war has already been declared for the next presidential election. We can say that we have made progress in the method, under the political constraint linked to the absence of a majority. During the examination of the law on purchasing power, we were thus able to pass on two ideas: that of territorial modulation, in order to adapt the measures to French diversity, and that of at least partial compensation for national decisions that impact local authorities, such as the RSA for the departments.
I’ve always worn the jacket and tie since I was 12
We sometimes had the impression that the hemicycle had been transformed into the Court of Miracles…
Court of Miracles, how you go! Let’s say there is bad behavior from some of our colleagues. And that it is not only clothing, although there is a great relaxation in this area. I who have always worn the jacket and tie since the age of 12, I am attached to certain rules. We don’t come in sneakers and flip-flops to the Assembly. When you’re a deputy, you have to dress up.
Have some neophytes impressed you?
(doubtful pout). It takes a lot to amaze me…
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Surprised then?
(Silence). We quickly see in each of the groups those who emerge. Those who are going to be the spokespersons for a cause and those who make the foam. I have already made the remark several times to our colleague Ruffin who comes to the hemicycle to shoot a clip and leaves it just after his speech. Within the Finance Committee, for example, the socialist Philippe Brun seems to know his files well, and the LR Véronique Louwagie is a very serious person, but this is not her first mandate…. On the other hand, the Greens, I don’t know what’s going on with them, I find them very extinct.
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Since you are talking about the Finance Committee, the withdrawal of your candidacy for the presidency allowed the election of the rebel Éric Coquerel. Do you regret it?
But I never got Éric Coquerel elected, let’s get things straight on this case! At the end of the second round, I note that not a single member of the majority participates in the vote, and this at the request of the Prime Minister. We are 73 members of the Finance Committee. The majority has 32 seats; the RN, 11; LR, 8; Nupes, 20; and we, 2. No need to go to Polytechnique to understand that if the majority does not vote, one vote is missing to be elected. So I withdrew. Mass was said. It is therefore not me but the majority who installed Coquerel, and no one else. In the third round, he was elected with 21 votes, and it was not mine, I can assure you. We will see what will happen in a year, since the mandate is called into play every year.
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It is true that you said you did not want to benefit from the votes of the RN, because your father was resistant and your grandfather, deputy of Doubs, had refused to vote for full powers in Pétain…
Yes I said it, in private. Anyway, even with the votes of the RN, I would not have been elected… I will never make an agreement with the RN, I am a free man.
Why do you need to summon the resistance fighters past of your ancestors and the Pétain scarecrow? Aren’t these kinds of controversies that constantly fill the public debate easy?
You have to know where you come from and where you are going. I have no questions about this. On my mother’s side, they were constantly parliamentarians from 1789 to 1958. I descend from Louis-Michel Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau, who voted for the king’s death and was assassinated by a royalist the next day. My maternal great-grandfather defeated the last royalist deputy of the Doubs. As for my great-great-grandfather, he was Napoleon III’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, and I believe he was the only minister who died of a heart attack in the middle of a cabinet meeting. My grandfather was the only right-wing deputy to have voted against full powers in Pétain. He was one of only two Companions of the Liberation of the Chamber of Deputies in 1936. In pivotal moments of political life, we see those who are weathervanes and those who show consistency, and do not allow themselves to be impressed. .
The insubordinate France which invokes Robespierre? What do you think ?
And what do you want me to tell you? I am not a bloodthirsty person. Let these people restore the scaffold, and put an end to democracy. Mélenchon understood that all the others on the left had abandoned their historical references, he devotes himself to a rereading of the History of France in the light of Marxism. It’s his business. In France, we are constantly rewriting history according to the political interests of the moment. These self-proclaimed rebels are therefore the tinsel of the old left since the socialists have abandoned them and the communists are nothing more than communists in rabbit skin.
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A large part of the presidents of departmental councils decide to raise the speed limit from 80 to 90 km/h on secondary roads. What do you think, you who have had your license revoked several times for speeding?
Yes, it happened to me three or four times, and I assume completely, I even said it on TV. This 80 km/h measurement is the perfect example of what not to do. A completely absurd idea. We reduce the speed from 90 to 80 km/h, but we don’t lower that of trucks from 80 to 70 km/h… In the Marne, when the question came before the departmental council, where I still sit, I took the piece by saying: “We are going to stop the ball of fake asses: who around the table respects the speed limit of 80 km? “I am in favor of applying the existing laws before tightening them.
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Is this affair the sign of a small sling of rural territories against Paris?
Sure ! And it’s deeper than that. For five years, Emmanuel Macron has given the impression of having nothing to do with rural people. You cannot imagine the hatred that has developed against the president in the countryside! All these people who heat themselves with oil, which is my case, and who work 20, 30 or 40 km from home, who cares in Paris. While it is France! Leave these people alone and listen to them!